Stolen Namibian police and military weapons are arming gangsters on the Cape Flats.
This according to the Western Cape Gang Monitor quarterly report released earlier this month.
It said stolen police and military weapons from that country were being trafficked to Cape Town gangs. Firearms – including AK-47s and police-issue pistols – are smuggled across the border in trucks transporting fresh goods.
One shipment reportedly delivered more than 100 firearms to a single gang leader.
South African and Namibian police have traced at least 90 seized weapons to Namibian police stores after the first chance discovery at border patrol in 2020.
Stolen AK-47s are increasingly surfacing on Cape Town’s streets at cut-rate black-market prices.
Nine suspects, including a South African truck-company employee, were arrested in Namibia in August on charges of trafficking weapons from a military armoury.
“No single gang monopolises this smuggling route,” the report said, adding that an alleged illegal-abalone trader confirmed the same route was used for smuggling the seafood delicacy to Namibia, while gang members said the networks and routes also moved illegal diamonds and trafficked people.
Earlier this year Western Cape police commissioner Thembisile Patekile said police had seized more than 90 guns that could be traced back to Namibia. Police in that country said the guns were mostly older weapons that had been declared redundant, although gang sources claimed that the weapons were new.
The report also cited a leaked memo drafted by Namibian Police Commissioner Moritz Naruseb, who said several of the pistols seized in South Africa were engraved with ‘NPW’ (Namibian police weapon).
Only one conviction
“The April 2024 conviction of Namibian national Urbanus Shaumbwako is the only conviction relating to smuggled Namibian weapons in the Western Cape. Shaumbwako’s case also made headlines because he was one of the Namibians who allegedly broke into President Cyril Ramaphosa’s property at Phala Phala in February 2020, stealing more than US$4 million hidden in a sofa,” the report said.
Shaumbwako was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment by the Cape Town Regional Court in 2024, but Namibian investigators believe he was not the kingpin of the smuggling operation, only an intermediary.
In conclusion the report said: “Western Cape gangs obtain guns from many sources. Firearms and ammunition are diverted from gun dealerships or bought with fraudulently-obtained firearm licences. Weapons seized by police make their way back onto the market and guns licensed to private security companies are used for criminal activities.
“In numerical terms the firearms flow from Namibia is relatively small. However, the smuggling route appears to be active and perhaps more diversified in the types of firearms being trafficked than seizures suggest.”
The report is the sixth issue of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime’s Western Cape Gang Monitor, an output of the South Africa Organised Crime Observatory. The bulletins track developments in Western Cape gang dynamics drawing on information from field researchers in gang-affected communities, which includes interviews with current and former gang members, civil society and members of the criminal justice system.
