ORANGE FARM – The surprise arrest comes after an instalment of Gauteng’s Okae Molao operation which took place in Orange Farm on Thursday, February 09.
As per norm, the operation commenced with a trace phase were detectives made arrests of the most wanted suspects.
Following the tracing phase, a road block is conducted where cops do random stop and search, then later target problematic areas in the area.
An intelligence driven operation led the team of police bosses including Gauteng’s Police Commissioner Lieutenant General Elias Mawela among many others uncovering illegal gold-bearing processing activities as well as a dagga plantation.
Speaking to the media, Mawela explained why they targeted Orange Farm this time around.
“Orange Farm is known to be one of the national hotspots for gender-based violence and its fast growing. This has proven that the area has outgrown the deployed resources by the state to control policing hence, we visited the station,” he said.
Mawela added that the fast-increasing squatter camps also contribute to rising crime in the area.
“This station is struggling as the demarcated area is wide and informal settlements are spreading on a daily and influx of undocumented immigrants. Crime is growing out of hand in this area,” he said.
Mawela said about 1067 suspects were arrested during the operation.
“We managed to arrest 313 suspects who cases related to gender based violence and we are happy about it. Four undocumented suspects were arrested when they were found processing gold barring materials and also running illegal dagga lab. Over and above, we have managed to arrest an additional of forty undocumented suspects during our road block,” he added.
Mawela said they having plans to deploying more resources to assist Orange Farm in fighting crime.
“Orange farm remains our priority stations and we continuously do assessment to check if resources are still adequate to provide quality services to the community. When we supply additional resources to different stations in the province, Orange Farm will also be catered for,” he said.
