The police arrested 1 051 suspects in the Free State during last week’s run of Operation Shanela.
The aim of this continuous operation is to look for unlicenced firearms, concentrating on murder and rape cases, including newly reported cases and the tracing of wanted suspects.
It also concentrates on the prevention of and search for suspects of trio crimes, which include carjacking, house robbery and house breaking, as well as armed robbery.
Action taken include roadblocks and vehicle control points (VCP) at identified hotspot areas, the setup of semi-permanent checkpoints, and tracing operations to search for wanted suspects. This is executed in collaboration with other authorities, including the departments of Home Affairs, Health, Correctional Services, and Small Business Development.
In one of these operations, women from Verkeerdevlei, together with women of Home Affairs, conducted an operation where the focus was on compliance of tuck shops at Tshepong in Verkeerdevlei.
They proceeded to a vehicle checkpoint at the Verkeerdevlei Toll Gate Plaza, where vehicles and persons were searched to ensure high police visibility.
The Mangaung and Parkweg Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences (FCS) unit conducted a tracing operation on wanted suspects and accused.
In total, 353 wanted suspects were successfully traced and arrested to account for the crimes they had allegedly been involved in.
Among the 698 suspects arrested during the week through Operation Shanela as a whole, 48 were arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol; with 130 arrested for being illegal immigrants, 23 for illicit mining, 22 for malicious damage to property, 132 for assault, 64 for dealing or possession of drugs and 33 for being in possession of dangerous weapons, to name a few.
