Police captain arrested for selling guns
March 18 2013 at 12:35pm
By MOLOKO MOLOTO
By MOLOKO MOLOTO
AFP
Johannesburg - A Limpopo police captain
has been arrested for allegedly illegally selling guns meant to be destroyed to
the public.
Police strongly suspect some of the
weapons were sold to criminals by one of their own. The 41-year-old officer,
stationed in Polokwane, had been placed in charge of an SAPS storeroom.
“This is where we store all those
illegal firearms that we recover during operations and those that people
volunteer to hand in. He then illegally sells them to the public, even before
he registers them in our books,” said Limpopo police spokesman Brigadier
Hangwani Mulaudzi.
He said one of the vintage firearms,
yet to be deactivated, had been registered under the name of a close relative
of the policeman. The Star understands from a source close to the investigation
that the policeman collected the vintage gun as an antique for his wife.
“The wife is also a police captain. She
is being investigated and she might soon be arrested,” said the source.
The insider said the vintage firearm
previously belonged to Jack Botes, a former mayor of Polokwane.
Mulaudzi said the policeman was
arrested on Friday.
“The captain’s activities were exposed
after members of the public (enquired about) their firearms which they found
were no longer at the police nor registered as (having) been handed in.”
An investigation found that three
firearms went missing and were believed to be in criminals’ hands.
“The possibility of more of (these)
firearms being sold cannot be ruled out,” he said.
The suspect was expected to appear in
the Polokwane Magistrate’s Court today on charges of corruption and fraud, said
Mulaudzi.
The Star
