Cape Town - Western Cape police arrested more than 1 600 suspects for various crimes including murder and assault, during high density operations in the past week.
Police spokesperson Malcolm Pojie said that of the 1 620 arrests, 1 077 were wanted suspects, of which 22 were for murders, eight for attempted murder, 358 for assaults and an array of crimes comprising business robberies, house robberies and other crimes.
“Meanwhile in other high density operations such as raids, vehicle checkpoints, roadblocks as well as stop and searches, 533 arrests were effected in operational activities that commenced on Monday and continued into Sunday morning,” he said.
Pojie said that drugs consisting mainly of dagga, mandrax, and tik, 20 firearms, 6 938 litres of liquor and 141 dangerous weapons were seized.
“The high density integrated operations started three weeks ago in an effort to curb, combat and detect crime throughout the province. The operations also address crime generators such as drugs, alcohol and illegal firearms with raids executed at illegal liquor outlets, suspected drug outlets, and compliance inspections carried out at licensed liquor outlets. They are set to continue until crime levels are drastically reduced,” he said.
Pojie said that scores of officers from various units and police stations were being deployed to these operations on a weekly basis.
Cape Times