Pretoria - Three men found guilty of masterminding a 2014 spate of mall robberies have been found guilty by the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court.
At the height of the heists, the three stormed into a Telkom store at Irene Shopping Mall and stole cellphones worth more than R100 000.
An investigation led police to Yeoville in Joburg, where the suspects were arrested.
According to Sergeant Thabo Moatshe of the provincial Organised Crime and Project Investigation Unit, the men were brought before a magistrate.
The investigating officer opposed bail, and Khangelani Tshalibe, Collin Moyo and Kumbulani Keizer Dube were remanded in custody pending their trial, which started on June 21, 2015.
The charges brought against the trio were of robbery with aggravating circumstances, contravention of the Firearm Control Act, possession of illegal firearm, ammunition and suspected stolen property and corruption. Other charges were money laundering and defeating the administration of justice.
In January 2015, the men contacted Moatshe and offered to pay him to destroy the evidence in their case.
Moatshe immediately activated the Anti-Corruption Unit, and they were arrested for corruption while delivering the R150 000 in a bag at Boulders Shopping Centre in Midrand.
Further charges of corruption were added on to the initial business robbery case. And now, after almost six years, all three accused have been found guilty of robbery with aggravating circumstances.
However, Moyo and Dube were acquitted on the remaining other counts. Tshalibe was found guilty on all the other charges.
The trio will be sentenced on August 24.
Provincial SAPS commissioner Lieutenant-General Elias Mawela hailed Moatshe for the breakthrough.
Meanwhile, more shopping malls in the city have been targeted by armed robbers in recent weeks.
Last week, a suspect was shot and wounded after an attempted robbery at the Centurion Mall. His three accomplices are still on the run.
A civilian defending himself injured one of the suspects. Cash was stolen, but police managed to recover some of the money on the scene.
Anti-crime activist Yusuf Abramjee said jewellery stores were the latest targets for criminals. “We know that many of these jewellery stores carry very expensive stock, worth millions.
“What we are now seeing is the re-emergence of these gangs specialising in jewellery heists. The mere fact that they are executing these robberies in broad daylight shows how brazen they are.”
In another incident, a group of six men robbed a jewellery store in Bryanston, Joburg north.
It is believed that the robbers entered the mall at different times; two of them approached the jewellery store at about 12.11pm, pulled sledge hammers out of a trolley and smashed the display windows. The robbers grabbed jewellery, fled the scene on foot and fired shots at security guards.
Provincial police spokesperson Brigadier Mathapelo Peters said overall, they had seen a decrease in jewellery robberies in recent years. Peters said there had been just nine incidents since the beginning of the lockdown.
Pretoria News