The Hawks have moved to clarify that the accounts which have surfaced on social media in recent days are fake.
JUST as the Hawks have ramped up high-profile arrests in recent weeks, fake accounts purporting to be the elite crime-fighting unit of the police have sprung up on social media.
The Hawks, officially known as the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigations, have moved to clarify that the social media accounts which have surfaced on social media in recent days are fake.
Hawks spokesperson Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi said the public should know that the pages are fake.
“The Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation would like to distance itself from the Twitter pages and other social media pages that are purporting to be official pages of the directorate,” he said.
Mulaudzi said the Hawks were not on Twitter or Facebook, and explained that the Hawks only utilise the official Twitter and Facebook pages of the South African Police Service.
“As it stands, the only official social media pages under which the directorate communicates, are the official Twitter and Facebook pages of the South African Police Service.
“We hereby declare all social media pages purporting to be the Hawks’ official pages as fake and unreliable,” said Mulaudzi.
The Hawks’ arrest of businessman Edwin Sodi and former human settlements MEC Olly Mlamleli, amongst many, sent the country into a tailspin in recent weeks.
Meanwhile, the fake Hawks account has been targeting social media accounts which were displaying opulence.
In a seemingly light-hearted manner, it has been ‘flagging’ people displaying their wealth on social media.
