South African Police Service (SAPS) and Department of Correctional Services officers have seized numerous smokkeled items including PlayStation consoles, cellphones and TVs during a raid at Johannesburg Correctional Centre, also known as Sun City.
The raid happened on Wednesday night, led by Department of Correctional Services head, Makgothi Samuel Thobakgale.
Speaking to journalists during the raid, Thobakgale said correctional services officials must provide answers.
“Firstly, we start with unit managers. In every unit, there is a unit manager who now needs to account for what we found here. The second thing is to tighten security especially around the movement (that is) movements to court, movements to hospitals and even movements inside the centre,” he said.
“It is difficult to search. Most of these offenders what they do, they hide contraband in objects where you will not think they will hide them. Others will hide them inside television sets, that is why we have taken them. We have to unscrew and see what is inside.
“They hide them inside food containers, they hide them in mattresses so that is why you see we had to search even the mattresses and pillows.”
Last week, Daily Voice reported that money, cellphones and dagga pipes were among the contraband confiscated from inmates during a raid at the Goodwood Correctional Centre, where an inmate went viral on social media for showing prisoners living the “soft life” in the mang.
The surprise raid followed the surfacing of a video shared on TikTok by Zimbabwean national Bornface Banks, who boasted that inmates got to live for free without paying for rent, electricity, toiletries, food and education.
dailyvoice@inl.co.za