Arrests made in Buccleuch Operation Shanela

Police conducted a stop-and-search roadblock and performed arrests, as part of Operation Shanela across Johannesburg on January 25.

In Sandton, police held a roadblock in Buccleuch on Pretoria Main Road at the Perth Street intersection, where undocumented persons were arrested as a part of the operation.

“At this roadblock alone, we have 21 undocumented persons who [we] arrested, but the operation has three other legs running in the area. In total, it’s 41 undocumented persons arrested,” said Johannesburg district commander General Max Masha. “In January so far, I think there’s 159 [undocumented persons] arrests.”

Masha expressed that Operation Shanela is the police’s way of increasing police visibility across Sandton to minimise the space for criminals to operate within.

“That’s why we’re coming here today to ensure that we assert the authority of the state,” Masha said. “Now and then, we check on what the challenges are in this area. We realised they are having the challenge of contact crimes. Contact crimes are your robberies and your business robberies.”

Masha outlined some of the pre-operation work that goes into the planning of Operation Shanela campaigns across the district and mentioned a few wins experienced by detectives, including the five arrests they made as a part of Operation Shanela.

“These are wanted suspects, your known criminals that we have in our records, we arrested them in the last 24 hours,” Masha said. “Detectives have arrested 1021 suspects in the entire district of Gauteng.”

Masha emphasized that police are mindful of not tipping off criminals, hence the last-minute invitations sent out to the media on the evening before the operation, with vague information.

“Our main thing is to arrest criminals, to remove them from circulation so our people can be safe,” Masha concluded. “We don’t want to arm the criminals. Once they know beforehand, then they’ll be able to know ‘Today, let’s avoid Sandton.’ Then we won’t arrest anybody, the operation becomes just a show.”

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