SARS Customs officers accompanied by the local police, conducted raids on the CBD in search of counterfeit goods.

It was around lunchtime on Tuesday afternoon that the local police accompanied SARS customs officials on a raid through Tzaneen’s CBD. The group conducted inspections at various wholesalers, retailers and spaza shop in the precinct. The team was looking for contraventions of the trade in counterfeit goods act and they managed to confiscate hundreds of counterfeit Kiwi shoe polish, counterfeit cigarettes, feminine hygiene products specifically of the Always brand and green tea face creams.

During the raids, seven shop owners received a bit of a slap on the wrist for dealing in counterfeit goods. The police issued them with warnings and they signed voluntary surrender documents issued by SARS with warnings to refrain from selling these counterfeit goods. The police accompaniment was headed by local commander, Col Baloyi with the Customs officials led by Capt. Bekker.

According to the local police spokesperson Sgt Maurice Mkhwashu, some of the shop owners had caught wind of the inspections and by the time police reached their doorsteps, they had closed shop and were nowhere to be found.

Bulletin attempted to contact SARS the local SARS spokesperson, but due to the corona-demic, we were unable to reach him for any commentary. We were told that similar raids were conducted in Pretoria’s CBD on Wednesday.

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