LIMPOPO SHOOTOUT
‘They started the war,’ says police chief Masemola after 18 gang suspects killed in 90-minute Makhado gun battle
A lunch-time shootout ensued between suspected robbers and police in a double-storey house in Makhado, Limpopo, on Friday, resulting in the deaths of 18 criminal suspects and the injury of an officer.
A 90-minute gun battle between police and a suspected gang of heavily armed robbers left 18 gang members dead and one police officer injured in a residential area in Makhado in Limpopo.
Speaking from the scene of a bloody gun battle in Alti Villas in Limpopo, National Police Commissioner General Fannie Masemola told media that police had been tracking down the gang in a months-long joint operation by specialist units.
Masemola said police pounced on the gang who were hiding in a house in the wealthy Makhado suburb at about 1pm on Friday afternoon.
Masemola said the gang opened fire on police with high-calibre rifles.
Police then returned fire, which resulted in a shootout that lasted 90 minutes.
WATCH: Police in Limpopo shot and killed 18 suspects in a cash-in-transit fouled robbery on Friday in Makhado, Limpopo.
https://t.co/EhNbJ2BtJC #CashInTransit pic.twitter.com/HIZ1DV8WUo— Scrolla Africa (@ScrollaAfrica) September 1, 2023
The suspected gang was hiding in a double-storey house in a quiet suburban street when police pounced.
“They started the war,” said Masemola, speaking about 100m from the house where the suspected gang members were shot dead.
Masemola said a police officer was shot in the leg in the ensuing shootout. The officer, who was said to have lost a lot of blood, was taken to hospital.
The scene of the shootout in Makhado. Police have allegedly broken the back of a syndicate possibly responsible for a number of cash-in-transit heists in Limpopo, Mpumalanga and Gauteng. (Photo: Supplied)
Masemola said 16 men and two women were killed in the shootout.
He said the suspects had used rifles during the shootout with police.
Hawks General Godfrey Lebeya said the suspected gang members were found in possession of explosives similar to those that have been previously used in explosions during the commission of crimes.
Lebeya said the Hawks have been part of a joint investigation since early this year.
National Police Commissioner Fannie Masemola is at the scene in Makhado where 18 suspected cash-in-transit robbers were shot and killed. Masemola tells #Newzroom405’s @NqobileMadlala_ that 16 of the 18 robbers are male and the two are female. pic.twitter.com/9bFsaxvIpd
— Newzroom Afrika (@Newzroom405) September 1, 2023
He said, as part of the operation, police had also raided a house in Thohoyandou, about 70km from the scene of the shootout in Makhado.
There police arrested four suspects who are allegedly linked to the slain gang members.
Masemola said a police investigation had revealed that the gang members were planning to rob a cash depot in Limpopo.
Lebeya couldn’t say if the gang was linked to the recent spate of armed robberies in the Vhembe area, which has seen businesses and ATMs targeted in robberies.
The house in which the suspects were shot is also a double-storey consisting of a butterfly-style roofing with palm trees in the front. (Photo: Supplied)
Masemola revealed that the house in which the suspects were killed was owned by a Zimbabwean national.
However, Lebeya wouldn’t be drawn into revealing whether the suspects were part of an international or cross-border crime syndicate, saying investigations to that effect are continuing.
Stunned residents of the suburb, which comprises newly built double-storey mansions and those still being built, watched in silence as police forensic officers processed the crime scene.
The house in which the suspects were shot is also a double-storey consisting of a butterfly-style roofing with palm trees in the front.
There were no bodies of the victims visible to the public.
Masemola said although the shootout took place in a residential area, they had not received any report of civilian injuries. – DM/Mukurukuru Media
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Good news, now they can’t spend 10 years wasting time in the courts.
😉 Good 1.
Brilliant work there Saps and Task Force,Bravo and well done
Well done to law enforcement! May it only continue to all organised crime!
Absolute Drivel!
This is overkill. Brazil & Israel operates the same way.
Scratch the law & the law wil rub you out!?
Nah, can’t be overkill, they could only be killed once and that was just fine
I hate myself for saying this, but their deaths leave me cold. If this is the only way we can control violent crime in SA, then so be it. Clearly, all other initiatives have failed.
The article doesn’t say how many suspects were in the house, or how many were arrested. There is no way that at least the last one alive wouldn’t surrender when all his buddies were killed. There is also no mention of any suspects who were wounded, but not killed. Of course, it may have been a suicide pact.
The clean slate leaves me thinking this was a cleanup operation. Dead persons tell no tales.
Well done to the Law Enforcement Agencies involved.
Excellent news. Good riddance
I am certain that if the suspects were unarmed that the police would not have shot anyone. As callous s it sounds rather them than some innocent, hardworking security personnel and bystanders who had no choice in the matter whether they lived or died and left loved ones behind
This is what we are expecting to happen in this country. Well done security officials.
Lovely stuff. Please root them all out. More crime intelligence, all over the nation. Crime intelligence is needed in the Western Cape to root out gangsterism. Crime intelligence at the borders too.
Must admit to being just a tad sceptical about this story. It’s so much easier to kill everyone than to have to go through the problems in bringing a case to court. Not for one second do I believe the SAPS has the slightest ability to get anything right.
The police has demonstrated what they learned in training. Other criminals should know the SAP is not a paper tiger.