• Extensive investigations continue into five foreigners with possible links to an alleged local and foreign kidnapping and extremism syndicate.
• The five were arrested at a plot in Kliprivier in the Vaal on Thursday.
• Police recovered rifles and pistols hidden underground, military training gear and video footage depicting kidnapping.

Extensive and strategic investigations continue against five foreigners allegedly linked to a local and international kidnapping and extremism syndicate.

The foreigners were wanted for allegedly kidnapping a prominent 72-year-old man on 2 July.

The man was rescued in Kensington, Johannesburg, on Friday.

During the group's arrest, police recovered rifles and pistols hidden underground, military training gear and video footage featuring kidnapping, among other crucial evidence.

National police commissioner General Kehla Sitole told News24 that some of the recovered firearms have been identified in videos of other crimes, like the New Year's Day attack (on Poppy's restaurant in Melville) and extremism and kidnapping cases around KwaZulu-Natal.

Sitole said they further discovered there was a trans-national link with the crimes that had taken place at the plot.

"We have introduced the cold case strategy and have established a cold case unit. Once we have uncovered a crime like this, we bring in the cold case investigators, who will do a cold case analysis... [where] they can come up with more than 100 cases, depending on such an analysis".

He said experts would be analysing the modus operandi of the criminal syndicate.

Three of the suspects are expected to face charges of kidnapping in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court on Monday.

The remaining two, a man and woman, were expected to appear in the Palm Ridge Magistrate's Court on Monday on a charge of unlawful possession of firearms.