Within hours of a police station commander appearing in court for the theft and sale of police ammunition to organised crime gangs, detectives have launched investigations into allegations that he might be linked to a series of violent crimes that were committed using police weapons.
Captain Petrus Badenhorst, the commander of Rust de Winter police station, near Pretoria, appeared in the Pretoria North Magistrate's Court yesterday with co-accused Eduan Smit, 31, and Smit's wife, Elmari, 26.
The three were arrested by the Hawks on Tuesday after a 10-month investigation into the theft and sale of police and military ammunition from the police station.
Smit and his wife were arrested in a sting operation at a Pretoria shopping centre; Badenhorst, who is to be suspended, was arrested at the police station.
During the arrests police seized over 10000 rounds of ammunition for semi-automatic rifles and handguns. In the past month, they had bought nearly 40000 rounds of ammunition from the three in several operations.
In the early hours of yesterday morning, just hours before the trio's court appearance, police raided a Pretoria house where they recovered dozens of military-issue 20mm rounds of ammunition and a quantity of AK47 bullets.
The house is believed to belong to a relative of the Smits and is thought to have been used as a storage facility while buyers for the ammunition were being sought.
A source said shortly after Badenhorst's arrest that the police received information of his alleged links to several crimes that were comitted using weapons taken from the police station.
"All these crimes appear to have been violent. Investigators are following up on information that should soon lead to the arrest of several more people, including police officers, who were involved in these thefts and sales.
"It appears he [Badenhorst] saw himself as a super cop and a law unto himself," said the source.
The expected arrests will follow the widening of the investigation by detectives to include several Gauteng and Limpopo police stations with armouries from which thousands of rounds of ammunition are believed to have been stolen, allegedly by Badenhorst and people who have been linked to him.
Source: Times Live
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