MASERU — A police assistant and nine other men were arrested in Ha Thetsane last week for car theft.
Police spokesperson Masupha Masupha said the 10 were arrested following a tip-off about a gang involved in the theft of vehicles.
“Police received a tip-off that the suspects would be meeting at one of the men’s home to collect money after selling some cars,” Masupha said.
He said most of the group members were famo musicians who were wanted in connection with the killing of other famo artists.
The police suspect the group was stealing vehicles from South Africa and selling them in Lesotho.
Masupha said police confiscated nine vehicles including a BMW, Golf, Audi, and three trucks.
Some of the vehicles were recovered when police pounced on the group at Ha Thetsane while the others were recovered at different locations in Maseru on the same day.
Police also confiscated two illegal firearms and bullets from the suspects.
Masupha said they had also learnt that the suspects were shuttling between South Africa and Lesotho committing crime.
He added that some of the suspects had changed their names on their new passports.
“We have since realised that some of the killings in the famo industry could not be about music and markets alone, but there could be more to them,” Masupha said.
Meanwhile five male South African nationals were arrested in connection with an armed robbery which occurred at a local bank last Friday.
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According to a police report the suspects were caught parking near the bank as a security vehicle delivering money to the ATMs was about to leave.
The suspects were caught driving two vehicles, a Toyota VVTI Double Cab and Citi Golf.
Police recovered an AK47 and 9mm illegal firearms from the gang.
An unidentified number of suspects fled the scene and are still at large.
Masupha warned businesses against keeping large amounts of money on their premises as this made it easy for robbers when they strike.
He said it could also be helpful if they changed routes each time they went to the bank as employees mostly leaked information to robbers.