THOSE who shelter or even employ undocumented foreign nationals will be arrested as they are committing a crime.
This is according to Gauteng Police Commissioner, Lieutenant-General Tommy Mthombeni, who led Operation Shanela in Soshanguve, north of Tshwane on Saturday, 9 March.
He said they arrested 22 illegal immigrants.
"In terms of the Immigration Act, when you keep someone in your house you are supposed to be arrested. We met with Gauteng Home Affairs chief director and we agreed that when we arrest people on a premises, we will arrest the owners of the properties because they are harboring undocumented persons," he said.
Mthombeni said those who employ undocumented people in malls, shops and houses, the employers must be arrested.
"I think this problem of saying foreign nationals are the ones committing crime will go down because we arrest the owners of properties," he said.
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He said Soshanguve almost has four police stations.
"Jukulyn has a lot of complaints. We are making sure we address the concerns of the community. We went to an informal settlement where there is a problem. We addressed the issue of compliance," said Mthombeni.
He said on Friday, 8 March, they had intelligence driven operations and there was crime intelligence.
"Integrated had a successful operation in terms of thugs who robbed diplomats of the Embassy of Ghana. We arrested eight suspects. During the operation, we arrested illegal immigrants, 14 people for drunk driving and positively recovered a stolen Quantum and BMW, which was tempered with and will be taken for further verification. There were other law enforcement agencies that were part of the operation," he said.
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