Six police officers have been arrested in Cape Town, while the arrest of a seventh suspect is imminent, on charges of corruption.
Also read: Cape Town police nab abalone and drugs worth millions
The two sergeants and four constables, aged between 31 and 42, were arrested at the Maitland Flying Squad on Tuesday morning and are due to appear in court on Thursday.
According to police spokesperson Andre Traut, a seventh arrest is also in the pipeline. The suspects have also been suspended by the police.
‘They are accused of corrupt activities where boxes of abalone were seized from suspects on a number of occasions without making any arrests or handing in the abalone as exhibits,’ Traut explained. ‘They are also accused of harbouring a corrupt relationship with persons on the wrong side of the law by escorting drugs with a police vehicle.’
‘The investigation into the corrupt activities of the members is still underway, and as the matter unfolds, more charges could be brought against the members, who are now suspended from the SAPS.’
Law enforcement has been clamping down on the illegal abalone trade and has seen several arrests lead to convictions in recent months.
Last week, four men were sentenced in the Cape Town Magistrates’ Court after they were caught with abalone worth millions of rands.
This came after the Hawks Serious Organised Crime Investigation team, Crime Intelligence, as well as officials from the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and Environmental Affairs, arrested the suspects in Milnerton during a search and seizure operation where abalone worth R4.5 million was discovered in January.
They will now have to pay a fine of R300 000 or undergo 36 months of imprisonment, of which R150 000 or 18 months are suspended for five years on the condition that they will not be convicted of the same offences.
In November, abalone with an estimated street value of R1.2 million was confiscated in the Delft police precinct, a month after abalone valued at more than a quarter of a million rand was seized by members of the SAPS after a high-speed chase through Cape Town in October.
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