Sixteen suspects have been arrested and 17 firearms seized after a shootout between police and unknown gunmen at Pinetown west of Durban. This after a group of heavily armed men stormed into a taxi rank in the Durban’s CBD, fired shots and then immediately sped off on Friday.
It’s alleged that a 56-year-old taxi boss from Ixopo, south of the province was shot dead and two bystanders were injured.
The suspects were apprehended by police in Pinetown after the taxi they were using as a getaway vehicle crashed into a building on Scott Road. Minister of Police Bheki Cele says a South African Police Officer is among the suspects who were arrested.
“The firearms that up to this point have been discovered are nine ak47s which tells you people are ready for war. I haven’t seen so many 47s on the latest part of my life. I’ve seen them before but not here, it has been established that most of these people, 16 of them, they are working for a private security company. Among these 16 people we arrested a SAPS member who is based in one of the stations here, we are processing and assessing why he was there. But already we have activated SIRA. Those are people who look after companies and their guns to find out who is this company and why it happened this way.”
Meanwhile, Cele says the owner of the security company has been taken in for questioning.
“And we do have the names especially of the deceased but we are not sure whether their families have been informed or not. We do have the names and list of people but we can’t mention their names until they appear in court. We do have the names of the owner of the company so we are there, we’ll be acting as police and I can assure you we’ll act very decisively when we do.”
