Investigations into the murders of Kiernan ‘AKA‘ Forbes and Tebello ‘Tibz’ Motsoane took a turn when five suspects were reportedly arrested in Cape Town this past weekend.
AKA murder update: Here’s what we know about the five suspects
More than six weeks after the Mass Country rapper and his longtime friend were viciously gunned down outside a popular restaurant on Florida Road, Durban, detectives working on the double homicide made a breakthrough when five suspects were reportedly taken into custody in Cape Town.
As reported by News24, homicide investigators had been tracking the movements of five men believed to be at the centre of AKA’s murder plot for weeks.
While Police Minister Bheki Cele had hinted at cellphone activity as a crucial cog in the investigation, sources close to the case revealed that DNA and fingerprints lifted from the vehicle that was used in the commission of the double murder were key in identifying the persons of interest.
According to reports, after killing AKA and Tibz, the suspects fled Florida Road and ditched the getaway vehicle 26km away in Umlazi.
The DNA lifted from the vehicle was traced to a feared taxi hitman in Empangeni, and investigators, it’s believed, went undercover to track down the suspect under the guise of collecting details of unregistered government grant beneficiaries in the uMhlathuze region.
However, by then, it was discovered that the alleged killer-for-hire had fled to Cape Town to join four other men believed to be central to the double homicide.
The movements of the five suspects in Cape Town were tracked for weeks before a decision was made to pounce on them, and sure enough, KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) detectives assisted by Western Cape law enforcement, zeroed in on the alleged killers at a shopping centre in Belhar, on Sunday, 26 March 2023.
The five murder suspects were still in the custody of police when this article was published. It remains unknown if they’ve been formally charged with the murders of AKA and Tibz.
From what we understand, the suspects were likely transported to Durban for further processing.
This is a developing story.