{"id":30958,"date":"2026-04-07T07:36:04","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T05:36:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=30958"},"modified":"2026-04-07T07:36:04","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T05:36:04","slug":"thousands-arrested-in-sa-during-easter-weekend-crackdown","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/thousands-arrested-in-sa-during-easter-weekend-crackdown\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands arrested in SA during Easter weekend crackdown"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>The South African Police Service (SAPS) says its nationwide Easter operations have delivered a major crackdown on crime, with thousands of arrests and illegal weapons seized.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>More than 700 people were arrested for selling alcohol without licenses, mainly in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province and Mpumalanga province.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Authorities also confiscated 132 illegal firearms and more than 1 000 rounds of ammunition, with KZN recording the highest number of handgun confiscations.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Police have raised concerns over drunk driving saying more than 1 400 drivers were arrested.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Police Spokesperson Athlenda Mathe says they also shut down 532 illegal taverns for non-compliance of the Liquor Act.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u201cMeaning they didn\u2019t have a valid license to operate. We know that a lot of crime happens in those illegal establishments. You know, the assault Gender Based Harm (GBH), we had arrested more than 1 300, a lot of the assault GBH and some of the murders, some of the assaults, they are happening in those establishments. And mostly the mass shootings, when we attend to a mass shooting, we find that either the tavern owner is not in compliance with the Liquor Act or they do not have papers at all.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;SABC&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":23505,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-30958","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"More than 700 people were arrested for selling alcohol without licenses.","published_date":"","news_description":"More than 700 people were arrested for selling alcohol without licenses.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/30958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/30958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30959,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/30958\/revisions\/30959"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=30958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}