Johannesburg - They are just so nice and they drop the
sweetest of compliments, but behind
the breezy summer dresses and large
luxury handbags is a silver-tongued
gang that is stalking Gauteng.
Some know them as the House for
Sale gang, and for at least the last
couple of months they have been conning their way into houses and making
off with valuables
The cars they use and their images have been caught on CCTV cameras all over Gauteng, but as yet the police have not caught them.
On January 29, they hit a house in Alice Road, Kensington. And, as before, they used a similar modus operandi.
One asks the domestic worker if they can use the bathroom. Once inside, the women pilfer electronic goods and quickly make their getaway, with their own driver.
Spokesperson for the Cleveland police station, Captain Johan Jordaan, said a case of theft had been opened.
Leon de Bruin, a member of the Bedfordview community policing forum, is on a personal mission to catch the gang - he was one of their victims in September last year. Since then he has been tracking its exploits.
He has found that the gang will often target houses with For Sale signs outside, and will convince a domestic worker to let them on to the property, on the pretext that they want to view it.
The gang comprises three women and a male driver.
De Bruin said one of the women even asked their domestic worker for his wife’s cellphone number to get permission to see the house. The woman, he said, then pretended to phone his wife and talk to her.
“They are the nicest people; they hoodwinked everybody. They praise everyone - they told my domestic helper she had done such a good job cleaning the house,” De Bruin said.
As his domestic worker gave the one woman a tour of the house, the other two lagged behind and began emptying valuables into their oversized handbags. They even slipped in a laptop. “They took my whisky bottles out of their boxes and left the boxes.”
On the same day, they hit two other houses. De Bruin said they are known to have robbed houses in Springs, Benoni, Edenvale, Kensington and Primrose. The vehicles they use have cloned number plates fitted.
“On one day we saw on CCTV footage their car with a CA plate, and then on the same day the car had been fitted with a NJ plate,” he said.
Last Friday, the authorities came close to catching them. The gang was spotted in Rayton, close to Cullinan, just after 1pm.
Cullinan CPF chairperson Karen Yssel said the gang members, driving a car with the same number plates used in the Kensington robbery, tried to gain entry to three or four properties in Rayton.
“They tried to access a house with some excuse of dropping off a wedding dress, but the worker didn’t give them access. Then, about 40 minutes after that, we received three or four other reports of the same ladies.
“In one, they said they were from the clinic and wanted to do an inspection of the house,” said Yssel.
“They came across as friendly, well-presented and well-spoken. People think that they are classy ladies.”
No one gave them access, and a warning was flashed on social media. By chance, one of the CPF members happened to be caught in a traffic jam on the R513 highway when he spotted the suspects’ vehicle ahead of him. The member tailed them, but later lost them on the East Rand.
This time the gang got away, but De Bruin believes it is just a matter of time before they make a mistake and get caught.
In the meantime, he'll keep collecting whatever information he can glean about the gang.