Police are keeping a veil of secrecy over the arrests of three men on Sunday afternoon linked to the murder of rapper Kiernan “AKA” Forbes and his friend Tebello (Tibz) Motsoane.
On Sunday afternoon, plain-clothed cops arrested the three suspects at an ATM machine inside the Erica Square Mall in Belhar. In a follow-up, two other suspects were arrested in a different part of the area.
AKA was shot at point-blank range on February 10 as he was leaving the Wish restaurant in Florida Road, Durban.
According to media reports, all the suspects were being interrogated and had been trailed for two weeks, and traced to Cape Town, by cops from Durban’s organised crime unit. On Sunday, the Durban cops had been assisted by the police’s national intervention unit.
But on Monday, police would not confirm the arrests which were captured on cellphone cameras by shoppers and shopkeepers at the mall.
One of those shopkeepers, whose shop is adjacent to the scene where the suspects were nabbed, said he thought the cops had arrested them for tampering with the ATM.
“There’s an ATM in the corner but it looked like they were trying to rob the ATM machine...there were undercover cops on the scene.
“One of the police officers was inside my store and was watching the suspects. They were just standing around the ATM when they were arrested.
“Police were shouting at them, one of the suspects had a gun on him,” said the shopkeeper. He described those who were arrested as “black guys, they looked like foreigners”.
According to him, the whole incident “lasted about half an hour” and there were no shots fired.
Sunday’s arrest came, according to reports, after a Mercedes-Benz believed to have been the getaway car of AKA’s killers, had been found abandoned in Umlazi township just south of Durban.
The car was searched for clues, and cops had even gathered DNA samples and fingerprints. One of those fingerprints was traced to a known taxi industry hired gunman from Empangeni, near Richards Bay.
And while police did not have his address, they set up an elaborate ruse to nail their suspect, going from home to home, pretending to be officials from Sassa, out to register the indigent.
That’s until someone registered the suspect’s details with the “Sassa” officials.
Contacted for comment, KZN Police spokesperson Robert Netshiunda said there was nothing new about the murder investigation.
“There is no update at this stage on the AKA matter. Investigations are ongoing and progress will be reported in due course,” said Netshiunda.
According to reports the arrested men had been linked to taxi killings in KwaZulu-Natal.