April’s Star of the Stars is a dream team

14 April 2009

Crime Line’s Star of the Stars with Pick n Pay honours April’s top cops – an active team of crime-busters.

On 18 March 2009 Crime Line received a tip-off about suspicious activities that were being conducted in the garage of a house in Johannesburg, where boxes marked "MERCK" were clearly visibly when the garage door was opened.

The tip-off contained a detailed address and Captain Lee Wood, who manages the Gauteng Crime Line Nodal Point, and his team raided the premises on the same day at about 15:00. They searched the garage and found medical supplies and equipment including tablets, nasal sprays, creams, medical kits, syringes, trachea tubing and needles, all marked "for state hospital use only". They also found four Sony Bravaria Plasma television sets and 44 X-box sets and games. The estimated value of these items totalled R1.5 million.

Four suspects were arrested - Abdul Ally, Mohamed Ally, Afrad Ally and Fazel Hakimjee. They have already appeared in court and were awarded bail between R1000 and R20 000. They will appear in court again soon. The SAPS is liaising with the Department of Health regarding the medical equipment.

On the very same day that they seized the medical supplies, Captain Wood and his team followed another tip-off and bust two more people. They raided a complex in Vorna Valley, Midrand and confiscated five laptops to the value of R60 000 which are suspected to be stolen.

During the month, Captain Wood and is team made various other arrests linked to information received in tip-offs. Two arrests were made in connection with illegal liquor trade and a third arrest was a drug dealer, the team also confiscated dagga and a dagga plant at this raid.

The Star of the Stars award for April goes to all six members of the team, Captain Wood, Deputy Inspectors Davies, Nxumalo, Clark, Duba and Ntontela. Pick n Pay will be donating a coffee machine to their office as well as a prize voucher for the team.

With 727 criminals arrested and some R28-million of stolen property, drugs and counterfeit goods seized since the campaign’s launch, Crime Line has grown from strength to strength.

“We have seen a dramatic increase in the number of tip-offs over the past month and this can directly be attributed to the various partnerships we have formed with a number of companies, as well as media partners such as SABC, Jacaranda 94.2, Algoa FM, Caxton publications, community newspapers and community radio. Independent Group of newspapers has also been supporting the campaign,” said Crime Line manager, Yusuf Abramjee.

Crime Line provides citizens with a platform on which to blow the whistle on crime. Members of the public can SMS 32211 (at a cost of R1 each), 24 hours a day with any tip-offs about crime or criminals, or log onto the website, www.crimeline.co.za.

All information Primedia receives is passed on to the SAPS on a real-time basis. They in turn act on that information immediately, as well as report back regularly on successful arrests.

From time to time, the campaign also zooms in on wanted criminals and focuses on certain priority crimes and cases, depending on where the police’s need for information is.