Four arrested in Muden with AK47 and 159 rounds, police link them to anti-illegal-foreigner marches

Four suspects were arrested in Muden in the early hours of Thursday, 29 October 2026 after police found them with three firearms and ammunition, the South African Police Service said in a statement issued by the Office of the Provincial Commissioner in KwaZulu-Natal.

Police say the four have been actively involved in the ongoing marches over illegal foreigners, and that National Crime Intelligence officers deployed in the province had gathered information that they were allegedly involved in criminal activities including cash-in-transit robberies and were in possession of guns.

The statement says the intelligence was acted on through a multi-disciplinary operation involving members of the KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Task Team, which led officers to a residence in Muden. There, according to SAPS, the four were found with an AK47 assault rifle, two handguns and 159 rounds of ammunition. They were arrested for illegal possession of firearms and ammunition.

The firearms will go for ballistic testing to establish whether they were used in the commission of crime in and around KwaZulu-Natal or elsewhere in the country, police said.

The four, aged between 19 and 35, are due to appear in the Greytown Magistrate’s Court on Friday, 30 October 2026.

The statement does not name the suspects, does not say what they are accused of beyond the firearms and ammunition counts, and does not state whether any of them has been charged in connection with the robberies referred to in the intelligence account. The robbery link is described by police as an allegation carried in intelligence, not as a charge.

Colonel Robert Netshiunda is the contact named on the statement. The full SAPS media statement is published at https://www.saps.gov.za/newsroom/msspeechdetail.php?nid=72153.