Port Elizabeth – The police and community partnership yielded positive results when three men were arrested for possession of two unlicensed firearms in KwaNobuhle in Uitenhage, west of Port Elizabeth, Eastern Cape police said on Sunday.
"Police on patrol acted on information from residents of three men with firearms driving a white Opel Kadett," Sergeant Majola Nkohli said. Police officers spotted and stopped the car at the corner of Kobese and Zinto streets at about 4am on Sunday.
Police found two illegal firearms inside the car and arrested the three occupants. The car was impounded. The three men aged between 24 and 33 were due to appear in the KwaNobuhle Magistrate's Court on Tuesday on charges of possession of unlicensed firearms, Nkohli said.
In a separate incident, police recovered a car, albeit without its wheels, believed to have been stolen during a hijacking incident in Matanzima Road on KwaNobuhle on Saturday night.
Four men, two of whom were armed, accosted a man who had stopped on the roadside to inspect the car for a noise coming from underneath it at about 10.40pm, Nkohli said. The owner was held at gunpoint and searched.
The men stole a cellphone before fleeing in the VW Polo Cross. The car was found an hour later abandoned but with its wheels missing at the KwaNobuhle Multi-Purpose Centre in Matanzima Road.
No one was injured during the incident and police were investigating a case of hijacking, Nkohli said. “The police would not have known that the suspects had firearms if it was not for the information from residents," KwaNobuhle police station commander Colonel Dial Kettledas said, referring to the first incident.
"Police would like to encourage more people with information about illegal firearms to share it with the police. The information shared on Crime Stop 08600-10111 is treated as confidential and a caller would remain anonymous. Let us share information and support each other in the fight against crime. Information may also be shared via Crime Line SMS 32211,” he said.