‘When they see police, they run away’, says Cele on foreign nationals selling fake goods

Police Minister Bheki Cele says undocumented foreign nationals continue to make the police’s fight against crime difficult.

Cele led the Operation Shanela in Johannesburg CBD on Saturday clamping down business operations selling counterfeit goods.

The operation was carried out by the South African Police Services (Saps), the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD), the Department of Home Affairs as well the Department of Employment and Labour.

While a number of fake products and medicines valued at over R1.4 million were confiscated, the police also made some arrests.

Leased stalls

Speaking to the media, Cele said most stalls on De Villiers Street and elsewhere in the city have been rented out by South Africans to foreign nationals who then sell fake items.

“These stalls are licensed and are owned by South Africans and those South Africans are not utilising them, instead, they lease them to foreign nationals and that is wrong. That’s why we have to get a list of the people who have these permits,” he said.

The minister called on those who don’t use their permits to return them so the stalls can be given to other people.

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“There’s no use to get them legally and give them to people that are not supposed to be here, people that are not legit, people that run away when police come. If you run away when you see police coming, then you know you are doing something wrong that you are doing, you know that you are committing a crime.”

Cele also lamented the fact that some of the immigrants were illegally in the country.

“When they commit a crime, they give police difficult work to check and chase those people who have no fingerprints, no DNA, and all that. But one thing that takes us back on this matter, every stall in these streets is foreign nationals, and mostly those foreign nationals are illegal,” the minister added.

Unregistered medicine

Meanwhile, South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (Sahpra) medicine control officer, Ramarumo Chepape reveled that most confiscated medicines being sold were unregistered.

“Most of them are your steroids, topical medicines that are used to lighten the skin. They are supposed to be registered, but most of them are not registered with Sahpra,” Chepape said.

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“We have arrested about two people. Some of the suspects when they saw us coming, they locked their stalls and just ran away.

“We wouldn’t know who’s the owner of the shop because they are sitting there and when you ask them ‘is this your shop’ they say ‘no, it’s not ours [and] it’s not open yet’,” the Sahpra official continued.