By Doreen Mokgolo
- Orange Farm police station reported 33 more murders compared to last year, while overall crime in Gauteng decreased.
- Police arrested nearly 35,000 suspects and seized hundreds of illegal guns during their operations.
Orange Farm police station sees a sharp rise in murders, even as crime drops across Gauteng
Gauteng police commissioner Lieutenant-General Tommy Mthombeni said on Friday that Orange Farm reported 69 murders between October and December 2024, an increase of 33 cases from last year.
Johannesburg Central station also saw a rise in crime, recording 49 murders—five more than during the same period last year.
Gauteng accounts for 26.5% of South Africa’s crime, with murders making up 25% of the national total.
Speaking at the release of crime statistics for the last three months of 2024, Mthombeni said this period usually sees more crime due to the festive season.
However, the province recorded 2,398 fewer contact crimes compared to the same period in 2023, a drop of 4.7%. Overall, crime in the last quarter of 2024 fell by 6.5%.
Contact crimes include murder, assault, rape, and serious robberies such as carjackings, house robberies, business robberies, cash-in-transit heists, kidnappings, and truck hijackings.
Police arrested 34,910 suspects, including 10,936 illegal immigrants.
Breaking down the arrests, Mthombeni said 4,601 were for contact crimes, including 140 for murder and 114 for attempted murder.
“We have arrested 1,836 suspects for assault GBH and 1,650 for common assault, and 240 for robberies.
“We managed to close down 1,414 illegal liquor outlets, seizing 160 million millilitres of alcohol, and arrested 4,007 suspects for liquor-related offences.
“We further seized 351 illegal firearms, 31 rifles, and 7 shotguns, along with 6,608 rounds of ammunition during our operations,” he said.
Gauteng Legislature Community Safety Portfolio chairperson Bandile Masaku said they are concerned about private security officers displaying firearms in public.
Pictured above: Gauteng Commissioner Lieutenant-General Tommy Mthombeni.
Image source: Doreen Mokgolo
