Two arrested for trucks arson

Police have confirmed that two people have been arrested in Mpumalanga in connection with the burning of trucks.

The men, aged 29 and 27, were arrested at their places of residence, said national police spokesperson Brig Athlenda Mathe. 

“The first suspect was arrested on a farm in Piet Retief with the assistance of a private security firm, and the other in Ermelo,” she said. 

“High-density operations continue through roadblocks, stop and searches, and the tracing operations of these wanted suspects.”

The suspects face charges of malicious damage to property. The national police commissioner Gen Fannie Masemola said “the net is closing in on those behind these attacks”.

“Police are hot on the heels of more suspects, which involves the ring leaders of these sporadic incidents of criminality. Either they hand themselves over or we fetch them ourselves.” 

So far, 21 trucks have been torched in Mpumalanga, Limpopo and Gauteng in what has been described as coordinated attacks.

On Wednesday, Police Minister Bheki Cele announced that 12 people of interest had been identified through investigation and intelligence collection, with most of them located in northern KZN. 

Cele told a media briefing that evidence pointed to “organised, coordinated and sophisticated operations that sought to undermine and sabotage the state”.

In the same briefing, Masemola said cops were in possession of videos they were analysing and would “follow up on those people who are on those videos”.

In one of the recent videos, a dashcam from a truck’s cabin shows the driver stopping his vehicle and then talking to the person who had stopped him through the window.

He then gets out of the truck and another man wearing a hoodie takes the driver’s seat and starts spraying a flammable substance on the bed behind and sets the truck alight.