Germiston detectives celebrate nominations for SAPS Provincial Excellence Awards
“Our crew puts a lot of effort into finding suspects. When it comes to tracing operations and making arrests that result in convictions, we rank highly.”
Germiston police detectives celebrated their nomination in the SAPS Provincial Excellence Awards.
The team’s nomination is for the Best Detective Group of the Year category.
The award ceremony will be in Pretoria.
This team was the best detective and forensic team of the year at the recent Ekurhuleni District Excellence Awards.
They won the best-performing detective group prize at the same competition the year before.
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According to Lieutenant Colonel Mark Rikhotso, the group commander, it thrilled the team to receive a nomination for the provincial awards.
“The nomination serves as a motivation to the A-Team, as we call ourselves,” said Rikhotso, adding their excitement to be recognised at the highest level.
“It was a wonderful sensation to win the district-level award in our backyard.
“Our crew puts a lot of effort into finding suspects. We rank high in tracing operations and making arrests that result in convictions.
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“We also had court sentences of 10 and 15 years, as well as two life sentences. We handle a lot of serious crimes, such as murder and business crimes like fraud.
“This year, our top case was a murder case we could solve and where two perpetrators received life sentences.
“The victim was discovered dead. Before we conducted an inquiry, when the case was opened in 2019, the victim was reported missing.
“This year, the court found guilty two individuals of several offences after the team apprehended them. One man received a sentence of 55 years in jail, while the other one received a sentence of 65 years.
“I hope it served some justice to the family of the deceased. The witnesses in the case at one point received threats, making it difficult to crack the case,” said Rikhotso.
According to Rikhotso, murder and property cases are a problem in Germiston, necessitating longer hours for his squad.
“Robberies of homes and businesses are a cause for concern in the community. We advise business owners to do appropriate banking and manage their finances with caution.”
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After studying policing at the Vaal University of Technology, he joined the SAPS in 2003.
“I worked as a detective, focusing on business offences at Vanderbijlpark SAPS. After that, I moved to work as a commercial crimes investigator for the SAPS OR Tambo International Airport detectives.
“I began working in the stock theft section of Vereeniging SAPS in 2010 and joined Germiston SAPS in 2017.
“At Vanderbijlpark SAPS, I worked on a business fraud case where the manager of truck fleets was defrauding the company money.
“Following the investigations, he entered a guilty plea and received a 10-year prison sentence for fraud. He had stolen R1.2m from the business,” Rikhotso said.
Detective Sergeant Asanda Nxawe, Detective Sergeant Almighty Mashigo, Detective Sergeant Mzamani Moses Shibambu and Detective Sergeant Mandla Computer Mathebula complete the Germiston SAPS detective and forensic team.
