Police identify and arrest members of gang 'terrorising' Diepsloot

Police on Friday attributed recent incidents of crime in Diepsloot, north of Johannesburg, to a gang of about five or six people who have allegedly been terrorising the area since October last year.

Diepsloot police station commander Brig Koena Moichela told the Gauteng portfolio committee on community safety they initiated established a team consisting of local detectives, crime intelligence and the trio crimes task team to nab the gang.

Moichela was briefing the committee on the progress of crime-fighting measures and ongoing efforts to combat violence and crime in the area. 

This followed a meeting held in December where plans were presented to address the increase in crime.

“Through information from the community, we have identified a group coming from Thembisa. They will go and kill people randomly. Normally criminals will rob you and if you resist they will hurt you or kill you but this group kill you and search you as dead as you are ...

“Very much unheard of ... Last weekend we managed to get information and apprehended one suspect. [He was] arrested in Ebony Park, Thembisa,” he said.

He added that their investigations and interrogation had led them to two other suspects who were arrested this week. Police seized a firearm similar to a gun described by a victim of the gang 

“They have appeared in court this morning [Friday] and since we got this information last weekend, we haven’t had any incident of murder, attempted murder or shooting. 

“We believe we got the right perpetrators. We will work on them and ensure we arrest the remaining suspects and keep them in custody,” Moichela said.

He said incidents of murder, assault to cause grievous bodily harm, common robbery, business robbery and robbery with a weapon were a concern.

“We are policing a very violent community.”

From last October to the end of January, police in the area have arrested 17 suspects for murder.

Moichela said 13 were in custody, two were out on bail and one had already been convicted.

Local Community Policing Forum (CPF) chairperson Mautla Maela added that they were patrolling the area over weekends as one of their interventions. 

“The challenge that we have is that we had the relocation of people from Diepsloot to Riverside View RDP flats of which there were so many spaces that have been opened. Those open spaces are all invaded. People have sold those spaces and most of them are leaders and are known in the community.

“We were appealing for those people to be brought to book for them to answer. Most of the people have sold those spaces to illegal immigrants — those that are not even on the housing database.” 

He added they do have operations with other stakeholders, but the Johannesburg Metro Police Department was not on board in terms of enforcing the bylaws. He said the other challenge was the issue of illegal immigration and people who own houses in the area allegedly renting their back rooms to them. 

The committee's chairperson Bandile Masuku said they have an obligation to understand how the immigration system is working and how the border management agency fits in the picture.

“Hence our focus intervention study, we are going to engage in looking at border control, we will look at the comprehensive ways on how as law enforcement in Gauteng we can be deal effectively with issues relating to immigration.

He said a permanent strategy to combat crime in the area would not succeed if there was no co-operation and co-ordination between law enforcement agencies and the community.

“We are quite pleased with the report of the arrest of the gang that has been terrorising the community, though it seems the gang is not originally or native to Diepsloot. But I suspect there is some work that needs to be done and we are hoping to get more reports on the progress of the case on the gang that has been arrested. 

“In our engagement with the community, we are going to deal with the issues of how we get the provincial wardens on board here,” he said.   

Moichela said the inhibiting factors and deficiencies which hamper effective and sustainable policing remain.

He said these were the challenges posed by permeable borders leading to an influx of foreign nationals, and limited prospects for economic growth within the area contributing to elevated levels of unemployment and poverty. 

He said the absence or inadequacy of lighting infrastructure, deteriorated road conditions causing delays in response times, unauthorised and illegal electricity connections and lack of street addresses contribute to the high rate of crime in the area. 

TimesLIVE