Gauteng police have arrested five Ekurhuleni men after a 28-year-old kidnap victim was rescued in Katlehong on Tuesday in yet another kidnapping incident in Gauteng.
Police spokesperson Brig Vish Naidoo said the victim was rescued without any ransom being paid. He said Tahseen Mateen Kardame, 28, a maulana (Muslim religious leader), was kidnapped outside his father’s hardware franchise in Benoni on November 12.
The multidisciplinary integrated task team was immediately activated.
“Following intensive investigations, the team initially arrested two suspects in Daveyton, including an Ekurhuleni municipal traffic department employee, at 11.30 last night [Monday],” said Naidoo.
Naidoo said the team continued with investigations, which had led them to Wattville in Benoni, where the third suspect was arrested at about 9am on Tuesday.
The investigations eventually led the team to a house in Katlehong where the kidnap victim was rescued and two more men were arrested, bringing to five the number of suspects arrested thus far, said Naidoo.
The suspects are all SA nationals aged between 29 and 72 years of age. One of them is a well-known cash-in-transit robber who is out on bail.
Naidoo said the team had recovered about 15 cellphones, three firearms including a semi-automatic rifle, a shotgun and a pistol, as well as ammunition.
The suspects will appear at the Benoni magistrate’s court on Thursday on charges of kidnapping, extortion and unlawful possession of firearms and ammunition.
SA has seen a spike in kidnapping cases in which victims are abducted for ransom, especially in Gauteng.
In two recent reported cases, a Grade 7 pupil from EP Baumann Primary School in Mayfair, Johannesburg, was snatched by armed men outside her school two weeks ago. Before that the nation was stunned when the four Moti brothers were taken at gunpoint by their abductors while on their way to school in October in Polokwane. They have been reunited with their family.
Gerard Labuschagne, police investigative forensic psychologist, told Sowetan that the increase in kidnappings among business people and children was because global organised gangs had moved into SA because they felt the time was right or that law enforcement agencies were ineffective. He said they were targeting high-value people.
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