Pretoria - Law enforcement agencies invaded Mamelodi on Saturday and pounced on several people who were found drinking alcohol, and in so doing, defying the lockdown regulations.
A motorist who said he worked for the Department of Education tried to evade arrest by throwing away his alcohol, but was among those arrested.
The police found that most of the motorists who had alcohol in their vehicles started panicking even before they had been stopped.
The police asked those arrested to work with them by pointing out where they bought the alcohol from.
Provincial police commissioner Lieutenant-General Elias Mawela said they picked Mamelodi because it contributed a large volume of crimes on the entire crime scoreboard in Gauteng, especially when it came to hijackings, business and house robberies.
He said the operation took place in three phases: the first phase was when detectives went out and busted 144 wanted suspects and second, the visit to scrap yards where they arrested a man for possession of seven positively identified stolen vehicles.
The night roadblock was the last phase.
“At this roadblock (near Denneboom Mall) we arrested at least four people who were driving under the influence of alcohol and found two positively identified stolen vehicles. We also found someone who was transporting alcohol at one of our vehicles’ checkpoints and we will follow through with investigations.
“We do these operations simultaneously with other regions of Gauteng so that we can be felt across the province. That is why we have seen that the levels of crime are going down,” said Mawela.
Pretoria News