Suspected kidnappers caught, victim freed following dramatic speed chase

The National Intervention Unit (NIU) deployed in the Western Cape under Operation Lockdown III made a breakthrough when it freed a young man from his suspected kidnappers in Bellville.

The  23-year-old man was walking along a street when he was accosted by four suspects who forced him into their vehicle and sped off on Thursday.

After being pursued by the NIU, the suspects later abandoned their vehicle and attempted to flee on foot, but police managed to arrest three suspects. One evaded arrest, said police spokesperson Amanda van Wyk.

Police recovered the victim’s belongings and an imitation firearm that was allegedly used during the commission of the crime.

The team has been deployed to the province in response to public outcry over the high number of lives lost to violent crime, with the operation targeting "drug trafficking, extortion, and gang-related violence, particularly in the Cape Flats," Van Wyk said.

She said their action area includes stations mostly afflicted with gang and extortion related violence.

"The unit has a permanent presence in Cape Town, while the continuance of Operation Lockdown III as a national intervention deployment, is dependent on the situation it is expected to deal with."

Briefing the Select Committee on Security and Justice on the strategy last week, Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia and the Western Cape Police Commissioner for Police  Thembisile Patekile said the operation comprises “integrated crime intelligence and data analysis to link different criminal markets, multi-agency cooperation between various criminal justice clusters, flexible task teams capable of addressing overlapping crime threats, avoiding siloed responses, and community partnerships to build trust and support to tackle root causes and gather information”.

The GangsterismMustFall movement welcomed the NIU as a “long overdue intervention”.

“Communities across the Cape Flats have been living under siege for far too long, and the levels of violence, extortion, and gangsterism demand urgent and decisive action. However, for this intervention to have lasting impact, it must form part of a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach, as envisaged in both the Medium-Term Deployment Plan (MTDP) and the Integrated Violence and Crime Prevention Strategy (IVCPS). Policing alone cannot resolve the deep-rooted social and economic challenges driving crime. The deployment must therefore be coordinated with social, economic, and developmental programmes that restore safety, dignity, and hope to our communities,” said the movement’s spokesperson, Roscoe Jacobs.