Gauteng Provincial Police Commissioner, Elias Mawela, says the crackdown on counterfeit goods will continue in other areas of the province.
A raid was conducted in the Johannesburg CBD where hundreds of millions of rands worth of counterfeit goods were confiscated, equipment to manufacture counterfeit merchandise and a cache of weapons.
The raid follows last week’s riots in the City Centre where police were forced to retreat by stone throwing protesters.
Over 600 undocumented migrants have been arrested in the raids and taken to the Johannesburg Central police station.
Mawela says the sale of counterfeit merchandises undermines government’s attempts to grow the economy and bring about stability in the country.
“The operation will continue because we have realised some of the inhibiting factors. The President is trying his level best to ensure that he stimulates the economy of South Africa, but this is a disruption. So for us to strengthen that plan of the President, we need to deal decisively with counterfeit goods. It will be taken to other areas within the province. We know of those areas already, our Intelligence remains hard at work in terms of identifying and collecting more information. So the operation will continue.”
Mawela says the CBD has been under surveillance since last week’s riots.
“We have placed all this area under surveillance ever since the disruption it was under surveillance we have recovered 46 vehicles packed with counterfeit goods but in these buildings we have recovered a lot of merchandise. The undocumented people all of them we have taken them to Johannesburg Central Police Station whereby home affairs is currently busy verifying their status and we also have our local criminal record centre guys there who also check their criminal background and whether they are not linked to other criminalities. Over 600 thus far are already taken in there.”
