Cops arrest 45 suspects, confiscate 35 firearms after spate of deadly shootings in Cape Town

• Western Cape police said they confiscated 35 firearms and arrested 45 people in the past week.
• This followed a series of recent shootings in Cape Town.
• The shootings in Camps Bay, Delft, and Vrygrond raised the alarm.

Western Cape police confiscated 35 firearms in the past week as they ramped up efforts to stop the shootings that left the Cape metropole reeling last week.

"Concerted efforts by police officers in the previous week resulted in the confiscation of 25 firearms in the City of Cape Town district – which comprises 62 police stations – and a total of 10 firearms in the other four districts," Warrant Officer Joseph Witbooi said on Sunday.

Forty-five people were arrested in connection with the possession of these firearms.

In a report on last week's operations, police revealed that following a bloody weekend in Steenberg, where nine people were shot dead, police searched a temporary office at the taxi rank and found ammunition that had been abandoned.

READ | Trigger warning: 13 people killed as Cape Town reels from bloody week of shootings

They also searched 17 taxi drivers and confiscated four legally held firearms for ballistics testing.

In an ominous development last Wednesday, a vehicle parked outside the court raised the suspicions of members of the Public Order Police and, on searching it, they found an imitation firearm and dangerous weapons. Five people were arrested.

Police said they also made several drug busts, most notably at Cape Town International Airport, where drugs were found covered with chocolate wrappers in the luggage of a person arriving from Dubai.

The drug busts included the arrest of a woman and a man stopped on the N2 and found to have more than 500 Mandrax tablets.