Durban - The power of social media has helped solve a sax crime and put a young musician back on his drive to get more gigs.
When Glenwood saxophonist Tim Lewis, 20, saw thugs run off with his R20 000 Italian sax, leaving behind a broken car window outside a local pub almost a month ago, he was in shock.
“I had gigs coming up at Tiger Tiger, Origin and Kulture, but now had no instrument to play alongside the DJs at these events. Fortunately, my family brought me my smaller soprano sax from Pietermaritzburg, so I was able to play, but I was not giving up on finding my one-of-a-kind Grassi Professional 2000 sax,” he said.
Lewis reported the sax stolen to the police in Umbilo in July and put out an appeal on Facebook, which resulted in a flow of cash through crowd funding, and a replacement.
Then he got a friend request on Facebook a week ago that turned out to be the manager of Cash Converters in Berea Centre, Xolile Ntuli, who said he might have his sax.
The next day he went to the store and identified the sax, in its case with his name on it.
“The person who stole it, sold it for R450, and the buyer who paid R2 000 for it contacted the store to say he believed it was the one he’d seen reported stolen on Facebook, and wanted it returned to its rightful owner,” said Lewis.
Xolile Ntuli said the sax would be held by the police to follow up on the details given by the person who sold it to them. “He had an affidavit from the police that it was his, but clearly it was not. I feel good we were able to help solve this crime,” she said.
Sunday Tribune