A GANG of alleged extortionists terrorising spaza shops was caught on Friday, with four suspects arrested in connection with the murder of bekende shop owner Umar in Bonteheuwel last week.<\/p>\n
The South African Police Service (SAPS) are clamping down on extortionists targeting spaza shop owners for protection money in various communities such as Nyanga, Elsies River, Bonteheuwel and Franschhoek.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And following the death of Somali shop owner Umar, who was shot and killed on 13 July, SAPS spokesperson Constable Ndakhe Gwala announced: \u201cThe four suspects, between the ages of 31 and 43, were arrested for extortion and murder.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are all affiliated with one local gang.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe four will make their first court appearance at the Bishop Lavis Magistrate\u2019s Court on Monday.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Bonteheuwel, ward councillor Angus McKenzie joined SAPS and law enforcement officers on an operation at the weekend to find suspects caught on CCTV footage robbing a shop owner at gunpoint, with a female gun runner also filmed.<\/p>\n
She is allegedly pretending to be a customer while the male suspect discharges a firearm before handing it to her, and they flee the scene.<\/p>\n
McKenzie said: \u201cI confirm that with the help of the police we have arrested a number of individuals in the last 12 hours.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAll 12 will be charged with extortion-related cases.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bonteheuwel incident is one of a vrag to have taken place innie Kaap recently.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On Saturday, a 36-year-old man was shot and wounded while seeking refuge inside a spaza shop in Halt Road, Elsies River. The gunmen fled with R1 500 in cash from the register and packets of chips.<\/p>\n
Then in Crossroads dozens of spaza shops have been closed since last week amid allegations of escalating extortion by armed criminal gangs.<\/p>\n
Gwala said police are actively searching for a man seen carrying what appears to be an assault rifle in videos that have been circulating online.<\/p>\n
Gwala added: \u201cThe man is a wanted suspect who had previously evaded arrest. Police are following all available leads in a quest to apprehend him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last week, police were also called out in Franschhoek, where two men were shot and killed and two others wounded at a spaza shop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A GANG of alleged extortionists terrorising spaza shops was caught on Friday, with four suspects arrested in connection…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339029,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[52],"tags":[30015,164056,164055,45085,5217,164053,164052,3064,3542,164058,22867,8245,64739,164060,164062,113680,164061,108164,164054,7912,13251,128136,1179,134347,131,1687,164057,164059],"class_list":["post-339028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-south-africa","tag-angus-mckenzie","tag-assegaai-street","tag-assegai-street","tag-bishop-lavis-magistrates-court","tag-bonteheuwel","tag-bonteheuwel-a","tag-ca-gang","tag-cctv","tag-elsies-river","tag-epping-refugee-centre","tag-franschhoek","tag-ghanaian","tag-halt-road","tag-https-www-facebook-com-anguspmckenzieda-videos-statement-by-cllr-angus-mckenziethis-morning-we-were-alerted-to-yet-another-atta-1574664017351046-rdidh3tfeohozq0tclti","tag-ironwood","tag-jakkalsvlei-street","tag-jakkelsvlei-avenue","tag-langrug","tag-lavender-street","tag-lavis-saps","tag-nyanga","tag-operation-lockdown-iii","tag-police","tag-somalian","tag-south-africa","tag-suspects","tag-umar","tag-zimbabwean-embassy"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}