The Hawks spokesperson, Christopher Singo, says the trio was arrested for selling fraudulent taxi permits. He says a number of people had been buying taxi permits from these suspects, which have generated an amount of R156 000. He adds that one of the people who was caught in possession of a fraudulent taxi permit identified the seller, which led to the arrest of this trio.

“Traffic officials were busy conducting their stop-and-search in Welkom. While busy with the search, they discovered that some taxi permits were fraudulent. They then conducted their own preliminary investigation, and it was discovered that those permits were stolen from the Department of Traffic.”

Singo further says the trio arrested for these stolen permits are not employees of the traffic department, and at this point, it is unclear how they managed to get access to them. He says investigations are continuing to establish whether this theft that happened in 2019 was a break-in at the traffic department, or whether there was an insider working with the suspects.

OFM News/Mpho Mohapi