BLOEMFONTEIN – Three suspects — two males aged 36 and 40, and a 24-year-old female, arrested in Bloemfontein CBD for possession of an unlicensed firearm and illegal possession of live ammunition are due in Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday.
Lieutenant Colonel Thabo Covane, provincial spokesperson for the Free State police, said the suspects are South Africans and were arrested by members of the Park Road Crime Prevention Shift C on Saturday. He said members were conducting an operation as part of the Safer Festive Season Operation Shanela II.
Covane said the trio were nabbed after they failed to account for the firearm and ammunition found in the vehicle they were travelling in. “Members were conducting stop and search activities in Douglas Street, Bloemfontein CBD, when they noticed that a silver Audi with three occupants took a sudden turn without the use of indicator lights. The vehicle was stopped, and upon searching the occupants and the vehicle, members found a magazine loaded with live ammunition in the driver’s possession and a pistol hidden underneath the driver’s seat. None of the occupants could account for the firearm, produce a valid firearm licence or a permit to possess ammunition, leading to their arrest,” he said.
Covane said the firearm will undergo ballistic testing to determine if it was used in the commission of other crimes as part of the ongoing investigation. It was confiscated alongside ammunition as part of the evidence. Suspected drug dealer leaps to his death from Bloemfontein flats
The vicinity of the Douglas Street remains the focus of high-profile criminal incidents and targeted police clampdowns. Ongoing police operations have seen numerous arrests, recovery of multiple zip-lock bags of crystal meth, dagga, cash from illicit sales and a digital weighing scale. A recent drug-related incident saw a Nigerian national allegedly leap to his death from the second floor of Kenlin Court. The Nigerian Consulate-General confirmed the deceased as 33-year-old Kenechukwu Christopher Igwemmadu.
