Back to Africa Check

Old South African K9 unit police cars are marked ‘dog unit’

A post shared on community policing Facebook pages in South Africa warns that criminals drive fake police vehicles that can be identified by the marking “dog unit”.

It says the South African Police Service (SAPS) doesn’t have a dog unit.

“That terms a relic, they called K9 units, if u are ever stopped or spot a SAPS car like the one below with ‘Dog Unit’ written at the rear DONT STOP, the car is fake and its wanted for robbery and highjackings.”

The post includes a photo of a police car marked “dog unit”.



‘Could be fake information’


But police spokesperson Col Brenda Muridili told Africa Check the SAPS had not had a case of robbery or hijacking registered in which the criminals drove a car marked “dog unit”.

Muridili said old K9 vehicles were indeed marked “dog unit”, but the newer cars were now marked “K9 unit”.

The photo in the Facebook post “could be a picture of our old vehicle”, she said.

“The photo doesn't indicate other call signs and information, therefore it is difficult to check the vehicle's originality. It could be an authentic old picture circulating with fake information.” – Africa Check (11/06/2019)




 

Republish our content for free

Please complete this form to receive the HTML sharing code.

For publishers: what to do if your post is rated false

A fact-checker has rated your Facebook or Instagram post as “false”, “altered”, “partly false” or “missing context”. This could have serious consequences. What do you do?

Click on our guide for the steps you should follow.

Publishers guide

Africa Check teams up with Facebook

Africa Check is a partner in Meta's third-party fact-checking programme to help stop the spread of false information on social media.

The content we rate as “false” will be downgraded on Facebook and Instagram. This means fewer people will see it.

You can also help identify false information on Facebook. This guide explains how.

Add new comment

Restricted HTML

  • Allowed HTML tags: <a href hreflang> <em> <strong> <cite> <blockquote cite> <code> <ul type> <ol start type> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd> <h2 id> <h3 id> <h4 id> <h5 id> <h6 id>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
limit: 600 characters

Want to keep reading our fact-checks?

We will never charge you for verified, reliable information. Help us keep it that way by supporting our work.

Become a newsletter subscriber

Support independent fact-checking in Africa.