South Africa’s elite Directorate of Special Investigations known as the Scorpions have arrested another 12 Eastern Cape taxi operators. Among them are five men accused of forming a hit squad to abduct and kill a leading Border official. The arrests bring to 15 those arrested by the unit in its first operation, which is aimed at ending the the bloody taxi war in East London and King William’s Town that claimed seven lives last month. Five men accused of organising the assault and kidnapping of Border Alliance Taxi Association (Bata) treasurer Mshiceleli Niditha from his Alice home on October 14, surrendered to the unit in the company of their lawyers on Wednesday hours before they were due to be arrested. They are out on bail of R1_ 000 each, and will go on trial for kidnapping and assault on Monday.