FALSE: Two-year-old Sandton SIM card raid resurfaces with inflated arrest figures
by Mophethi Mabeba
- SAPS records confirm only 45 people were arrested in the June 2024 Sandton raid.
A post from @Patriot_S_A on the social media platform X has surfaced in recent days claiming that 450 illegal foreign nationals have been arrested during a raid on a Sandton, Johannesburg property, where suspects were allegedly manufacturing fake SIM cards. The post, shared on the 14th of June 2026 at 5 pm, claims the incident was recent, but is in fact two years old.
According to a SAPS media statement, the raid took place on the 14th of June 2024, when the Gauteng Organised Crime Investigation Unit arrested 43 suspected illegal immigrants and two South African nationals at the Sandton property. The 45 figure is a tenth of the alleged figure shared in the now viral X post.
Gauteng SAPS spokesperson, Brigadier Brenda Muridili, confirmed to the Centre for Information Integrity in Africa that no raid of this nature took place in Sandton during June 2026, confirming that the viral post refers to the June 2024 operation rather than a recent incident.
The post is circulating two years after the raid, and this comes amid tension in the country surrounding illegal immigrants, where organisations such as March and March, as well as Operation Dudula, have placed a so-called “deadline” for all foreign nationals to leave the country by the 30th of June 2026.
The “deadline” itself originates from an AI-generated poster bearing the South African coat of arms that circulated on social media in May 2026. The government has publicly dismissed the poster as fake. President Cyril Ramaphosa, in a national address on 7 June 2026, warned that his administration would not be influenced by social media campaigns spreading misinformation about foreign nationals.
Sharing a two-year-old incident without a date, claiming it is recent, and inflating the figures does not appear incidental. The post is considered false because the incident did take place, but two years ago, and the figures are inflated.
Verdict: FALSE
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