Probe into sex syndicate under wraps

This after it was revealed that the police missed an opportunity to rescue the girls on Good Friday

POLICE have closed ranks about the investigation into the sex slave syndicate operating in northern KwaZulu-Natal. This after it was revealed that the police missed an opportunity to rescue the girls on Good Friday.

The girls were believed to be held by a Nigerian and South African-run syndicate operating a brothel on a farm outside Paulpietersburg in KwaZulu-Natal.

Yesterday police were tight-lipped about the matter, referring Sowetan to the Hawks, whose spokesperson, McIntosh Polela, said their involvement in the operation was being kept under wraps.

"We have been involved in the investigation from the beginning but we have imposed a media blackout because any information we receive must be kept confidential, otherwise it will jeopardise our investigations," Polela said.

The girls are allegedly being trafficked from Mozambique, Swaziland and Zimbabwe to South Africa to work as sex slaves.

SAPS KwaZulu-Natal communication unit head, Brigadier Phindile Radebe said the matter was being handled "at a national level".

But yesterday Lieutenant Colonel Vincent Mdunge of the KwaZulu-Natal SAPS was quoted as saying that the sex slave investigation was "massive" and "one of the most serious cases of human trafficking".

He said it was feared that the girls were moved shortly before police raided the farm and that they might have been moved to Amsterdam, where prostitution is legal and regulated.