Johannesburg - Eight men, allegedly on their way to rob a business were arrested in Diepkloof, Soweto, on Sunday after police cornered them, seizing two pistols and metro police uniforms.
Police acted on crime intelligence, and the suspected robbers, in four cars, were cornered in Immink Drive soon after they left the house where they stay.
“Police got information that the suspects were going to business premises to cut the safe and get the money,” Gauteng police spokesman Lieutenant Kay Makhubela said.
Equipment, including a ladder, jack hammer, a steel grinder and other tools were recovered from the vehicles - a Toyota Yaris, BMW X5, Isuzu double cab and Volkswagen minibus kombi.
Metro police and metrorail reflective vests and badges were also seized and four registration plates believed to be false were also taken from the cars.
It was not known whether the cars and firearms were stolen. Makhubela confirmed that one of the pistols had its serial number filed off and that some of the cars were registered in the suspects’ names.
“Some of the suspects are out on bail for other cases. They are well known to the police,” he said.
More than 200 people gathered along the tape cordoning off the scene in the adjacent park, while others hung over walls, undeterred by sporadic rain showers, as the suspects lay handcuffed and face-down on the road.
A spaza shop owner, whose shop fell within the cordoned off area, complained that he was not getting customers.
About 15 marked cars from the Flying Squad and the Gauteng Traffic Police’s saturation unit surrounded the scene.
Makhubela said police would investigate whether this matter was related to one in which a former Bafana Bafana player and nine others were arrested for planning to rob a truck carrying cigarettes. The men were found with two metro police uniforms.
The eight are to appear in the Protea Magistrate’s Court soon.
In unrelated crimes, national police spokesman Colonel Lungelo Dlamini said police had seized eight illegal firearms and arrested eight suspects at the weekend.
The firearms were recovered in Joburg’s CBD, Hillbrow, Kagiso, Bekkersdal, Springs informal settlement, Germiston, Loate and Tembisa. The suspects were expected to appear in magistrates courts in various districts on Monday.
Dlamini asked communities to pass on illegal firearm-related information to the police.
The Star