Johannesburg - A gang of thieves who stole about 700 pairs of takkies from a warehouse thought they were making a clean getaway when a security man suddenly came from nowhere.
In panic they jumped a red robot and ended up in a series of crashes - and the arrest of eight suspects at the weekend.
The man who gave chase, Johan Meyer, provides security to businesses in the Fordsburg area. He had been alerted by the owner of the storage facility that had just been robbed.
“I was in a bullet-proof Nissan bakkie so I wasn’t scared and chased them,” said Meyer.
He followed as the men fled in an Iveco panel van at high speed from the clothing business on Henry Nxumalo Street, around the corner from Johannesburg Central police station.
Meyer thought he had lost the thieves when they jumped the red light at the corner of Main and Mint roads. But they crashed into a Mayfair man’s car.
The thieves swerved frantically, only to crash into a taxi that had stopped at the lights. The taxi, which was carrying eight people, was knocked backwards and hit a parked truck.
Nobody was injured.
The truck appeared to belong to the ruling party and was emblazoned with pictures of ANC leaders and the slogan “Alex, the home of the ANC. 100 years of selfless struggle”.
“The next thing is, the door shot open and somebody jumped out [of the panel van],” said Latifah Benjamin, who witnessed the crashes. She saw four men run to another vehicle, which drove off at speed.
But the police had been alerted to the chase and getaway, and arrested the men as they tried to flee further, said SAPS spokesman Warrant Officer Xoli Mbele.
Some of the men jumped out of the Iveco and climbed into an accomplice’s silver Renault panel van that had been following them.
They tried to flee in the Renault but were arrested by police a few hundred metres from where they had crashed, said Mbele.
Six men from the Renault were arrested, one of them while still inside the Iveco. Another was arrested inside a silver Toyota Quantum nearby.
Meyer said the thieves had stolen 60 boxes of takkies, with between 12 and 24 pairs in each box.
The eight men will appear in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court soon.
The Star