Serious crimes are lower under lockdown says Bheki Cele
The police minister has broken down the crime statistics of this period of the lockdown compared to the same time last year.
Bheki Cele was speaking at a briefing in Pretoria this afternoon - on how citizens have been complying with the regulations to curb the spread of COVID-19.
He says many of the serious crimes are significantly down. "With murder that is 2 970 but under lockdown, we are at 1072, the difference is 898," he said.
"On rape, we are on 4431 down, on attempted murder we are 1439 down, on assault GBH we are 17 796 down on robbery with aggravating circumstances 9427 down."
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He says there's been a spike in the smuggling of alcohol and cigarettes - whose sale is currently banned.
"We have also observed an increase in smuggling of contraband liquor and cigarettes between South African land border with eSwatini and Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique and Zimbabwe."
"As well as the sale of the products on the black market and confiscated contraband include alcohol and cigerettes worth about 1, 7 million in March and 1, 6 million rands in April," he added.
