Cape Town - Police are keeping a veil of secrecy over the arrests of five men on Sunday afternoon who have been allegedly linked to the murder of rapper Kiernan “AKA” Forbes and his friend Tebello “Tibz” Motsoane.
Plainclothes police officers arrested the three suspects at an ATM inside the Erica Square mall in Belhar. In a follow-up, two other suspects were arrested in a different part of Belhar.
AKA, 35, was shot at close range on Friday, February 10, as he was leaving the Wish restaurant on Florida Road in Durban. He had been in the city for a live performance later that evening.
According to Netwerk24, all the suspects were being interrogated and had been under surveillance for two weeks and traced to Cape Town by detectives from the Durban organised crime unit.
On Sunday, the team was assisted by the SAPS national intervention unit.
But on Monday police would not confirm the arrests, which were captured on cellphone cameras by shoppers and shopkeepers at the mall.
One shopkeeper, whose store is adjacent to the scene where the suspects were nabbed, said he initially thought they were arrested for tampering with the ATM.
“There’s an ATM on a corner but it looked like they were trying to rob the ATM. There were undercover police officers on the scene.
“One of the officers was inside my store and was watching the suspects. They were just standing around the ATM when they were arrested. Police were shouting at them, one of the suspects had a gun on him,” said the shopkeeper. He said the whole incident lasted about 30 minutes, and no shots were fired.
According to reports, Sunday’s arrest came after a white Mercedes Benz believed to have been the getaway car of AKA’s killers had been found abandoned in Umlazi township, south of Durban.
The car was searched for clues, DNA samples and fingerprints. One of those fingerprints was traced to a known taxi industry hired gun from Empangeni.
And while police did not have his address, they set up an elaborate ruse to nail their suspect, going from house to house pretending to be officials from Sassa, out to register the indigent.
That’s until someone registered the suspect’s details with the so-called “Sassa officials”.
Contacted for comment, KwaZulu-Natal police spokesperson Robert Netshiunda would only say there were no new developments in the murder investigation.
“There is no update at this stage on the AKA matter. Investigations are ongoing and progress will be reported in due course,” Netshiunda said.
According to reports, the arrested men have been linked to taxi killings in KZN. A senior law enforcement source in Cape Town said it was no coincidence that the suspects were arrested in Cape Town.
“Former police colonel Christiaan Prinsloo, who sold guns (in police custody) to Cape Town gangs, also sold them to organised crime in KZN. When he was arrested, they simply moved on to another source (for guns),” said the official.
Prinsloo was released on parole last year, having served less than a third of his 18-year sentence.
The links between Cape Town’s underworld and KZN’s hitmen-for-hire industry is in the spotlight in the Western Cape High Court where three suspects – two of them from KZN – are currently on trial for the killing of criminal defence lawyer Pete Mihalik.
Sizwe Biyela, Vuyile Maliti and Khumalo are charged with the murder of Mihalik, who was shot and killed outside his two children’s school in Green Point in October 2018. Mihalik died of a gunshot wound to the head, while his son was injured in the attack.