Shoot your mouth off to police about guns

Cops must know where stolen firearms are, so speak up if you can

THE POLICE have remained mum on how many of the 2 400 guns that were stolen from its armouries and sold to arms dealers and gangs on the Cape Flats have been found.

This follows shortly after an arms cache that included an M26 grenade, R5 ammunition and two shotguns were found in Tafelsig, Mitchells Plain, on Sunday. Five women were arrested.

Last year a former police officer Christiaan Prinsloo was jailed for 18 years for selling guns that were supposed to have been destroyed to gangs. He was charged under the Prevention of Organised Crime Act. In an affidavit handed in at the Bellville Magistrate’s Court, 888 of the firearms were forensically connected to 1 066 murders.

In April this year six R4 rifles and 10 rounds of 5.56 mm ammunition were stolen from a military base in Khayelitsha.

Prior to this, a rocket launcher was also confiscated by the police in Kuils River as well 250 firearms in Valhalla Park. Both these confiscations happened last year.

At the time the police said the confiscation of the arms would help them to combat crimes being committed with firearms.

Provincial police spokesperson Noloyiso Rwexana could not say how many of the 2 400 guns were recovered.

“We still need to investigate, but this will form part of our investigation,” she said.

An informed police source said the firearms which have been landing up in the hands of gangs is of huge concern to police.

“But it is no use if they just confiscate firearms, but do not arrest the perpetrator of these crimes, because we need to recover these arms and make sure that it does not land on the streets.

“But in order to do this you need operations,” the source said.

Most of the people arrested in connection with the possession of the firearms were residents at the places where they were found.

Abi Isaacs, chairperson of the Mitchells Plain Policing Forum (CPF), has urged communities to come forward more frequently with information relating to illegal firearms.

The Mitchells Plain Crime Prevention Unit acted on a tip-off, which led to the arrest of the five women in Tafelsig.