Four arrests have been made following the fatal shooting at a shack in Mfuleni on Sunday December 1 which claimed the lives of five men.
The four suspects, aged between 29 and 35, have been charged with murder and possession of illegal firearms with ammunition.
They are expected to appear in court soon. As part of the same investigation, intelligence also led the team to a location where they recovered four firearms – a rifle and three pistols – as well as rounds of ammunition.
The confiscated firearms will undergo ballistic testing to determine if they were used in the Mfuleni shooting or any other crime.
The five men who were killed, aged betwen 19 and 30, were hanging out at a shack opposite a spaza shop on the corner of Police and Deputy streets when the shooting took place around 1.30pm.
Western Cape Police Commissioner, Lieutenant-General Thembisile Patekile, and the police management visited the crime scene on Monday morning and believes that the incident is linked to extortion.
According to the information they have gathered, he said the killers were looking for a man believed to be one of the leaders of a protection fee gang and he was friends with the owner of the shack.
“According to the information that we have, two men, armed with an automatic rifle and the other with a handgun, got inside and shot the five. All five men died at the scene. One of the deceased owns the house where the deceased persons were sitting.
“The motive, what we suspect now is extortion-related, but as our investigation continues it will tell us what other motives there may be, but what we know is that the person who owns this informal house was also having a criminal case going on in court. It is a rape case.
“Besides the house owner, two other deceased also had criminal records. One was arrested for drug-related crime while the other one was arrested for attempted murder.
“Cops understand that the five men who were killed were not the actual target. There was somebody that they were looking for that they could not find in the house who normally hides here.
“We are informed that he is one of the leaders in the extortion circles, but they couldn’t find him. They found his acquaintances and shot at them,” he said.
A mother of one of the victims said it has not yet sunk in that her son is gone. She said he was her third child out of four children and he was born in 1995. She said one of the young men killed in the shooting was going to leave on the same day to embark on a journey of manhood.
