Stolen vehicles recovered in Pretoria
Stolen vehicles recovered in Lyttelton and suspect arrested in police operation.
Eight suspects were arrested for various vehicle-related crimes and 28 vehicles confiscated in an intelligence-driven police operation this weekend.
The operation was held across Gauteng, including parts of Pretoria, on Saturday by members from various vehicle-crime investigating units.
Provincial spokesperson Brigadier Mathapelo Peters said the vehicles were confirmed as either stolen or hijacked, or their engines had been tempered with.
“In a parallel operation, officers from the Booysens vehicle unit arrested a suspect for theft of fuel reported in September 2019. They confiscated a VW Polo on suspicion of having been used while committing the crime.”
Two vehicles (a Ford Ranger confirmed as stolen in September 2019 in Lyttelton and a VW Polo confirmed as stolen in August 2010 in Sophiatown) were also impounded.
“Seven vehicles were seized by the Pretoria West vehicle-crime unit.”
Other operations in Johannesburg included the arrests of three suspects by the Soweto vehicle-crime team and a vehicle impounded during a roadblock.
The vehicle-crime unit from Vereeniging impounded three Toyota Hi-Aces and two Toyota Ventures.
The Benoni unit held inspections and seized two engines – a VW engine and a Honda engine – on suspicion of tampering. Meanwhile, seven vehicles were seized for further investigation from a scrapyard in Duduza, and one from a dealership in Benoni.
All eight vehicles had been tampered with.
Two further suspects were arrested in Kwa-Thema after police recovered a Hyundai i20 hijacked in Alexandra this month, and two firearms.
The provincial vehicle unit, working with Data Dot, arrested two suspects in the West Rand, one of them an undocumented foreign national, for possession of suspected stolen property.
Gauteng provincial police commissioner Lieutenant General Elias Mawela has commended the units’ good work.
He encouraged officers to maintain their momentum towards fighting vehicle theft and hijackings, “both often committed under violent circumstances during which victims are either injured or killed”.
The arrested suspects will appear before various magistrates’ courts in the province in due course.
READ MORE: Pta police operations yield 120 arrests
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