Dragon City looks like just another Chinese shopping centre from the outside - but the Scorpions believe it is the epicentre of criminal activity in Johannesburg, responsible for laundering R260-million in ill-gotten gains.
On Monday, hundreds of Scorpions staff and officials from the department of home affairs, South African Revenue Service (Sars) and the department of trade and industry (DTI) raided the centre in Main Road, Fordsburg.
They were looking for drugs, counterfeit goods, illegal immigrants, and import and tax documents.
Makhosini Nkosi, spokesperson for the Scorpions, claimed that R260-million had been laundered through the shopping centre, but would not say over what period.
"There is a great deal of criminal activity that takes place here. There has been a series of (separate) investigations that we conducted, which have led us to this place.
"For the next three days we will be conducting searches and seizures in and around the premises."
Nkosi would not divulge where the money was laundered to, or how many investigations had led the authorities to the shopping centre. He also would not reveal how many people were involved in the laundering racket or whether arrests were imminent.
In Monday's raid, the Scorpions threw a tight security cordon around the shopping centre while Sars officials checked shopowners for tax certificates and returns.
Heavily armed Scorpions officers vetted all vehicles coming into the shopping centre. Business owners were not allowed to leave during the operation.
By noon at least 30 people had been arrested for not having proper documents.
In addition, Sars officials shut down dozens of shops not registered for tax purposes, while DTI officials confiscated piles of counterfeit goods.
Business came to a halt as shop-owners looked on in amazement while Sars and DTI officials rummaged through their stock.
The centre's management refused to comment on the raid, and shopowners approached by The Star either refused to speak or claimed not to speak English.
But José Ferreira, who, with his Chinese wife Shimeifang, runs a clothing shop in the centre, bemoaned the fact that they couldn't operate as usual.
"Why must they close the whole place down? Most of us here are law-abiding citizens who pay tax and are registered. We are losing a lot of money.
"They think they can do whatever they want because the Chinese don't speak English."
According to Nkosi, the shopping centre appeared to be a distribution hub for small business owners in South Africa and Lesotho.
He would not say whether the Scorpions' investigation centred around the ruthless Chinese mafia, known as the triads.
"This is an ongoing investigation and at this stage we cannot rule out the possibility that a syndicate is involved here."
In a paper, Main Trends In The Development Of South Africa's Organised Crime, Institute for Security Studies researcher Peter Gastrow said there were four main triad groups in the country: the Wo Shing Wo group, the San Yee On group, the 14K-Hau group and the 14K-Ngai group.
"South African detectives, particularly in the Western Cape and Gauteng, have been aware of the involvement by Chinese criminal groups in a range of activities for many years.
"These include the ongoing smuggling of abalone (perlemeon) to the East, illicit trading in rhino horn and ivory, the importation and distribution of drugs, money-laundering, tax evasion, the illegal trafficking of Chinese immigrants into South Africa, and trading in contraband goods," Gastrow wrote.
"They are now active in a number of South African cities and have branched into a range of criminal activities such as fraud, drug-trafficking, firearm smuggling, extortion, money-laundering, prostitution, illegal gambling...
"Gauteng has become the hub of their activities; far more members of the Chinese criminal group are now active in the Johannesburg, Pretoria area than in Cape Town," Gastrow wrote.