Pretoria - Thieves appear to have found a new pot of gold in the form of dealers of top-end bicycles in and around Pretoria.
Both police and the targeted shop owners said on Thursday more and more expensive bicycles were being stolen during robberies.
Most of the thefts took place during the first week of this month. The bikes can cost anything between R10 000 and R100 000.
A Centurion store manager told the Pretoria News he believed the thieves were working within a syndicate. He said three stores that he worked for had been robbed of bikes worth about R1 million over the past year.
Mohammed Jamal, of Cajees Cycles, said two of their stores were robbed three times each. The third was targeted just once.
“Our Centurion store was robbed on January 2. The intruders came in through the back and took six bikes,” Jamal said. “These are the same guys who usually rob us. Our surveillance cameras show the same cars; a Nissan Hardbody and Polo sedan,” said Jamal, who also manages bicycle shops in Fourways and Alberton.
He estimated losses through theft at the Centurion store to be about R500 000. The losses at the shops in Alberton and Fourways were R300 000 and R250 000 respectively.
“The most expensive bike that was stolen here was a Giant, which costs R100 000. These guys usually take about six or seven bikes at a time. They do their research and do not just take any bike; they know their work,” he said.
According to Jamal, the stores were usually hit in the early hours of the morning when security guards were changing shifts.
He showed the Pretoria News video footage of the most recent robbery in which a man could be seen ransacking a storeroom at the Centurion outlet.
“This one was an amateur,” Jamal said. “You see how slow he’s moving? He doesn’t really know what he’s looking for.”
In a separate incident on January 6 at Hatfield Cycles in Pretoria, thieves managed to get away with bikes with a combined value of R300 000. But these were recovered by the police.
Hatfield Cycles manager, Johan Bedford, said the culprits broke into the store and disarmed the alarm and security systems. They returned later to collect their loot.
“They came in at 11.50pm and destroyed the alarm. But they closed the mechanism nicely so that nobody could see that it was broken. They came back at 1.30am and took 11 bikes,” he said.
One of the robbers was arrested after another alarm was set off when they attempted to break open the cash register.
“They didn’t know that there was another alarm. One of them was arrested while they were waiting for their getaway car,” Bedford said.
The robberies are not limited to Gauteng, but also occur as far afield as Rustenburg in North West.
Faried Saloojie, owner of Saloojies Cycles in that town, said his store was hit on January 3 and nine bikes were stolen.
“Those bikes cost R450 000 in total, with one of them priced at R125 000; a Specialised Stumpjumper,” Saloojie said.
Despite the suspicion that a syndicate was behind all these robberies, police maintain these could be isolated incidents.
Police spokesman Brigadier Vishnu Naidoo said they arrested five suspects - one in Kempton Park and four in Erasmia - in connection with the Rustenburg incident.
“Members of the national investigation unit received information about presumably stolen bicycles that were on sale on a classified website. They followed up and arrested the men,” Naidoo said.
He said police recovered seven specially-made mountain bicycles to the value of R500 000 from the arrested men.
“Investigations showed that the bicycles had been stolen from a store in Rustenburg.” The suspects have been charged and appeared in Rustenburg court.
“Thus far we regard this as an isolated incident, but investigations are continuing,” Naidoo said.
Some of the bikes at Garsfontein police station have since been identified by the owners of the shops from where they were stolen.
Pretoria News