Police in Gauteng have rescued a businessman and arrested six men linked to over a dozen kidnapping cases in the province.
National SAPS spokesperson, Brigadier Athlenda Mathe, said a multidisciplinary team had been surveilling a group of men, already linked to 16 cases of kidnappings where ransom demands were being made in the Gauteng province.
"In a take-down operation on Thursday morning, the team led by the Special Task Force (STF) and hostage negotiators, conducted operations at various identified addresses in Gauteng, including Jeppe, Helderwyk, Brackenhurst and Daveyton," she said.
Mathe said police also seized five high-performance powered vehicles, including two BMWs, two Mercedes Benz sedans and one Toyota Urban Cruiser.
"Twenty cellphones and 30 portable GPS tracking devices were also among the items seized by the team," police said.
Mathe said the businessman had been seized on January 7 and was successfully rescued from one of the premises and reunited with his family.
National SAPS Commissioner General Fannie Masemola has commended the team.
"Our message is clear: the SAPS is coming for all criminals; either they make our lives easy by handing themselves in, or we fetch them ourselves," he said.
Last month, 68-year-old Kevin Soal was shot execution-style after he was kidnapped and large amounts of cash taken from his bank account. Soal’s body was found at around 6pm near Olifantsfontein.
In August last year, IOL reported that there had been a dramatic rise in kidnappings and hijackings, with Gauteng identified as a kidnapping hotspot, according to the latest crime stats released by Police Minister Bheki Cele. The figures showed kidnappings increased by 59.1%, while hijackings rose by 14%.
IOL