Cape Town - With the help of a security company police arrested a man suspected of attempting to steal railway cables in Wynberg on Saturday.
According to a Facebook post by security company Combat Force, three men were caught in the act of cable theft by two patrolling security guards around 5am at the Southern line adjacent to Lester Road. They were digging a trench to locate and remove underground cables. Upon discovery, two of the men fled and left their tools behind. One of the perpetrators was apprehended and taken to Wynberg police station.
SAPS provincial spokesperson Sergeant Noloyiso Rwexana confirmed the arrest of a 37-year-old male charged with malicious damage to property, and that the man would appear in the Wynberg Magistrate’s Court on Monday.
Cable theft costs South African state companies such as Prasa, Eskom, and Telkom billions of rands each year.
On Thursday, five cable thieves were sentenced by the Western Cape High Court on 50 charges of copper cable theft-related charges. The group received an accumulated sentence of 1 250 years imprisonment. The charges relate to the theft of cables belonging to Eskom and Telkom in the Namaqualand and Western Cape regions, which took place from 2016 to 2018.
Earlier in the week, rail agency Prasa announced it had completed the first phase of infrastructure rehabilitation with the reopening of the Cape Town central line. Having not been operational since November 2019, the line cost R1.4 billion to repair thanks to vandalism and cable theft.