Stolen, sold, diverted: How legal guns become South Africa’s murder weapons

For the past 581 days, Samantha van der Vyver has started each morning by posting a photograph of her son on her WhatsApp status.

The photographs are all she has left of the son she loved and lost far too soon.

Tiaan Minnie was shot dead alongside his father, Heinrich Minnie, 47, while the two were offloading rubbish at the Arlington Waste Facility in Nelson Mandela Bay on February 3 last year.

“I have stacks of photos on my phone and I post one every day,” an inconsolable Van der Vyver told IOL on Friday. 

“My son meant everything to me, and personally this is the hardest thing I have ever had to survive; it is never easy burying a child.

“There is no closure and no answers. My sons lost their father and brother, no answers for them.

“A little girl is now growing up without her dad and brother … it is just not right that we do not get justice.”

Van der Vyver wants the people who killed her son and his father caught so badly that she has put up a R20,000 reward.

But more than 19 months on, with nobody arrested, she has been left with another fear.

That is that the gun used to kill the father and son may have been used in other killings — and could be used again to take another life if it has not been taken off the streets.

“Clearly the men who killed them are not novices,” she said.

“I would say there is a strong probability that the same weapon was used in other murders.”

Police spokesperson Captain Andre Beetge said on Friday the matter was still under investigation and no arrests had been made.

“The firearm used has not yet been found,” he said.

“Police are appealing to anyone with information that could assist in the investigation to contact Crime Stop on 08600-10111 or via the MySAPS app.”

Van der Vyver’s fear is not unfounded.

Firearms are the leading murder weapon in SA.

Guns were used in 2,513 of the 5,170 murders sampled by police between April and June this year, more than knives, sharp instruments, blunt instruments, bare hands and rocks combined.

According to experts IOL spoke to, the flow of firearms into the criminal underworld was being driven by guns stolen from, lost by or diverted from licensed owners, private security companies and even the police.

Cross-border trafficking has long carried most of the blame for the proliferation of illegal guns in the country.

“A firearm that is legally imported, licensed and held by a legitimate company can effectively become an illegal firearm the moment it is stolen and diverted into the criminal economy,” anti-crime activist Yusuf Abramjee said, on the back of a cache of firearms being stolen from a security company in Newton Park, Gqeberha.

“SAPS’s own priority-crime mandate specifically identifies the criminal exploitation of vulnerabilities in the control of legal firearm stocks, including firearms held by dealers, gunsmiths, transporters, official institutions and security companies.”

Police spokeswoman Captain Sandra Janse van Rensburg said staff at the company in Second Avenue arrived to find the back door forced open on Monday morning.

“Two safes containing firearms, which had been secured to the wall, were removed from the premises,” she said.

“A Nissan NP200 belonging to the security company was also stolen and was later recovered abandoned in Kwadwesi.”

Nine shotguns, two rifles and three battle jackets were taken.

All 11 firearms were recovered the same day in Gallants Street, Polar Park, where a 52-year-old man was arrested and charged with unlawful possession of firearms and possession of suspected stolen property.

“The swift recovery of the firearms is significant, as it prevented these weapons from potentially falling into the hands of criminals and being used in the commission of serious and violent crimes,” Janse van Rensburg said.

Eastern Cape police arrested 1,169 people and seized 42 firearms in raids, roadblocks and stop-and-searches across the province in the week to Sunday.

Of those arrested, 43 were caught with unlicenced guns and 17 with ammunition.

Provincial commissioner Lieutenant General Vuyisile Ncata said unlicenced guns kept fuelling serious and violent crime.

“We will continue to use all available resources to ensure that these weapons are removed from circulation and that those responsible are facing the full might of the law,” Ncata said.

Theft was not the only way legally-owned firearms ended up in criminal hands.

Abramjee said some were deliberately sold, handed over or otherwise diverted from the legal market.

A firearms training provider, who handles licence applications and asked not to be named, said guns surrendered to police for destruction were instead being sold.

“I think it is the fact that firearms that get handed in don’t get destroyed,” he told IOL.

“And it lands in the wrong people’s hands, who then sell them off to gangsters.”

He said people declared unfit to own guns had to surrender them to the police, from where they were to be sent to be disposed of.

“Unfortunately, there is corruption, and some of the firearms do not get destroyed,” he said.

“They get sold, and they end up in the hands of the criminals.”

That was exactly what happened in one of the most serious known cases of surrendered and recovered firearms reaching gangs.

Former police colonel Christiaan Prinsloo was convicted in 2016 of selling to gangs on the Cape Flats firearms that were meant to be destroyed.

He and colleagues took 2,400 firearms meant for destruction and sold them for more than R2 million.

The guns were linked to murders and attempted murders in Belhar, Hanover Park, Wesbank and Delft, with at least 261 children among the dead and wounded.

Prinsloo was the Gauteng provincial commander for firearms, liquor and second-hand goods, and was regarded in the police as a firearms specialist.

About nine days before the Newton Park break-in, police raided a security company in Soweto and seized 100 firearms and ammunition.

The raid was carried out on August 22 as part of Operation Buyisa, a national police intervention set up to curb the spread of illegal guns.

Gauteng police spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Amanda van Wyk said a preliminary report had been drawn up on the company.

The company’s registration with the Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority had been suspended, and the person responsible for the guns had failed to secure them as required by law.

An inspection found the company’s firearm storage facility did not meet the standard set out in the Firearms Control Act, Van Wyk said.

The seized weapons are being tested to establish whether any of them were used in crimes.

A pattern of gun thefts

The Newton Park and Soweto cases followed a series of similar thefts from state facilities.

In February, guns and other police equipment were stolen from the strong room at the police K9 unit in Ulundi, northern KwaZulu-Natal, over two days.

The stolen items included an R5 rifle, a shotgun, four pistols, more than 400 rounds of ammunition, handcuffs, magazines and two police bulletproof vests.

The thieves forced open the back door of the building before breaking through the roof to gain access to the strong room.

Acting police minister Firoz Cachalia detailed the stolen items in response to a question from DA MP Mzamo Billy.

Separately, thieves broke into the Lyttelton military base in Pretoria in April and stole R4 assault rifles and a grenade launcher.

Two men were arrested in June after police recovered two of the stolen rifles and ammunition, along with a replica firearm and a traffic uniform.

More firearms previously held by private security companies had turned up in criminal hands than firearms issued to police, parliamentary inquiries found.

A reply to a DA parliamentary question showed that 205 firearms belonging to private security companies and 154 belonging to the police had been recovered from criminals since April 2025.

DA MP Ian Cameron had asked the acting police minister how many firearms recovered by police had been traced to the SAPS, the SA National Defence Force (Sandf) and private security companies.

The reply, dated April 24, said no Sandf firearms had been recovered during the period in question.

Cameron had also asked how many recovered firearms with readable serial numbers were not recorded on the national firearms register.

Police said they could not provide that figure.

All legal firearms in the country were recorded on the Enhanced Firearm Registration System, but no record was kept of recovered firearms that were not listed on the system, according to the reply.

Six unregistered firearms had been recovered in the Western Cape during the same period.

Figures given by suspended police minister Senzo Mchunu in 2024 showed that an average of 138 firearms a month had been reported lost or stolen from security companies, compared with about 55 police firearms during the same period.

Police told Parliament last month that 2,346 police firearms had been stolen and a further 177 lost since April 2022.

‘Security firms are attractive targets’

Claire Taylor, a consultant at Gun Free SA, said companies that provided armed services were already attractive targets for criminals.

“Attacking a security company that provides armed services carries real risk, since these companies are typically staffed by armed guards,” she told IOL.

“Despite this danger, they are an attractive target for criminals, because they hold arsenals of guns, including high-calibres.

“Which raises an important question about this particular case. Why were this company’s firearms stolen in a housebreaking? It sounds very suspicious.”

Taylor said the daily loss of licensed guns dwarfed anything crossing the border.

“Civilians report 22 guns lost or stolen every day,” Taylor said.

“That figure includes an average of five guns a day reported lost or stolen by security companies specifically, some of them high-calibre weapons like rifles and shotguns, the kind used to protect cash-in-transit vehicles.

“These weapons are extremely dangerous as they can shoot accurately over long distances.”

Police recorded 33 cash-in-transit robberies nationally in the first three months of the 2026/27 financial year, according to crime statistics released on Friday last week.

The figure covered April to June and was two fewer than in the same quarter last year.

In 14 of those cases, robbers attacked guards on the pavement between the cash vehicle and the building. Guards were shot at in five cases and had guns pointed at them in another nine.

In the Eastern Cape, firearms were used in 369 of the murders sampled by police.

The province recorded 1,047 murders during the quarter and had the country’s highest murder rate, at 15.8 people per 100,000.

The firearms trainer said the heavy weapons used to guard cash-in-transit vehicles came from two different places.

“If you look at the high-powered rifles that your CIT guys use, it’s AK-47s, it’s R4s, R5s,” he said.

“AK-47s get imported from bordering countries.

“The R4s, R5s, mostly it’s military and SAPS that own those firearms. There are quite a few in civilian hands. But 90% of the time, it is found to be SAPS weapons.”

On licencing, he said the 90 working days the law once allowed for a decision had been stretched to 120, and approvals were in practice taking longer still.

“That 90 days is not applicable anymore. They’ve changed that to 120 working days,” he said.

“At the moment, [it takes] approximately 120 to 140 business days to get approved for licencing.”

Most of the delay occurred at police stations, where applications first went before being sent to a provincial firearms office and then to the Central Firearms Registry in Pretoria.

Emails to the registry often went unanswered, he said.

The delays left people renewing their licences with little room for error, as applications had to be submitted 90 days before the existing licence expired.

“They’re saying you’ve got 90 days to apply for a firearms licence, but it takes 120, 130, 140 working days to get that licence approved or denied.

“If they take 10 years to get your card to you, your licence is still valid, regardless of if they have actually finished the process or not. Because you’ve done your part as a legal firearms holder.”

What a stolen gun is used for depends on what kind of gun it is.

“Handguns are generally easier to conceal and therefore particularly attractive for robberies, hijackings, protection rackets and other crimes where concealment and mobility are important,” Abramjee said.

“Shotguns and rifles are more difficult to conceal but can provide greater range and firepower and may be attractive to criminals involved in armed robberies, attacks on cash-in-transit operations, rural crime or other organised criminal activity.

“That distinction should not, however, be overstated. Any unlicenced firearm is a serious threat.”

Research by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime found the same pattern in the Western Cape last year.

Its gang monitor concluded that guns reaching Cape gangs came mainly through diversion from legal channels, including dealers, fraudulently obtained licences, weapons seized by police that found their way back onto the street, and firearms licenced to private security companies.

Guns coming in from Namibia made up a small share by comparison.

Taylor said the private security industry had escaped scrutiny for years.

“Security companies operate under both the Firearms Control Act and the Private Security Industry Regulation Act, but in our experience, their obligations around firearm storage and reporting losses are not taken seriously enough,” she said.

“The industry has flown under the radar for years. It’s roughly four times the size of the police, yet faces a fraction of the scrutiny.”

Taylor warned against reading every gun death in SA as the work of organised crime.

“Organised crime is a serious and growing problem in SA, but most gun violence is not that,” she said.

“It’s young men killing other young men with an illegal handgun in an interpersonal dispute.”

Writing in the SA Medical Journal in June, Taylor and two co-authors argued that gun violence in SA was a public health emergency that had long gone unattended, and that the link between tighter firearms control and fewer deaths was no longer in dispute.

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