Three Chinese nationals are expected to appear in the Bloemfontein Magistrates Court in the Free State on Thursday, on charges of fraud, illegal possession of firearms, and illegal possession of ammunition.
The trio, two men and a woman, were arrested by members of the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (known as Hawks) on Tuesday, July 2.
The provincial spokesperson for the Hawks, Lieutenant Colonel Zweli Mohobeleli said a multi-faceted team comprising of different policing units, government departments, private security, and forensic investigators conducted the operation.
Police investigators reacted to information about two houses in Woodlands, Bloemfontein, where the suspects were using unknown machines to clone data and manufacture SIM cards.
A search and seizure operation, duly authorised by the court, was conducted. SIM cards of different service providers to an estimated value of over R1 million, suspected cloning machines, cash, two firearms, and rounds of ammunition were among the items recovered at the two houses, Mohobeleli said.
