Durban - Police have arrested four men believed to be part of a gang that robbed jewellery stores at the Gateway, Pavilion and Phoenix Plaza shopping centres.
The four, who appeared in the Durban Magistrate’s Court on Monday, were believed to have been on their way to rob a jewellery store at Musgrave Shopping Centre when they were arrested.
The alleged robbers, who were in a grey Hyundai, had stopped at the Caltex garage in Chris Hani (North Coast) Road on Saturday when Hawks officers, as well as members of the K9 unit and Crime Intelligence, who had been watching them, swooped.
Warrant Officer Viresh Panday and Detective Sergeant Deena Govender, of the Hawks, had received a tip-off that the car had been spotted leaving Phoenix.
Two firearms were recovered.
The four face charges of possession of unlicensed firearms and ammunition.
Prosecutor Kuveshni Pillay asked magistrate Mahomed Motala for a seven-day adjournment for bail consideration. She said the men may be linked to business robberies and hijackings.
The men had complained to the court they were being assaulted and had asked to be detained at Westville Prison instead of the Durban North police station.
The magistrate said the police were directed not to assault the accused and said the men would be held at Durban North until their next court appearance in July.
Police said the men could also be linked to more than 40 house robberies in the Westville, Phoenix, uMhlanga and Durban North areas.
It is alleged the gang had targeted homes first, before expanding into mall robberies.
Their modus operandi was said to be that they hijack a vehicle, use it in a robbery and then abandon it. In some cases a rental car was also allegedly used.
Gunmen had opened fire and made off with jewellery from Narandas Jewellers at Gateway, on Wednesday last week. The men had fled in a BMW, which was later found abandoned at a construction site.
Police spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Shooz Magudulela, said the BMW had recently been hijacked in Berea.
On June 8, four AK-47-wielding robbers forced their way into Beverley Jewellers at the Pavilion in Westville. After ransacking the shop they fled, firing shots before smashing through a parking lot boom in their getaway car.
In May, a gang targeted a jewellery store at the Phoenix Plaza and had reportedly fired shots at police when they were disturbed. The men fled with jewellery in two getaway vehicles.
Daily News