The Alexandra Magistrates’ Court remanded in custody a member of a six-man gang who committed a business robbery.
Ayanda Gqoloda (33) was arrested the day after the incident.
His next court date is dependant on the outcome of the ongoing investigation. Gqoloda, who had ferried the gang to the crime scene at the Mall of Africa in his girlfriend’s Mercedes Benz Vito, was arrested on 6 September at the woman’s Soweto home. He was identified through camera footage as he entered the mall where they robbed a Markham store of two laptops and 176 cell phones.
One of the gang members entered the store at about 9am and asked a female store manager to show him formal shoes. After she had shown him the shelf with the shoes, he grabbed her around the neck from behind and announced that it was a robbery. With his accomplices already inside the store, they ordered the staff members to lie on the floor. They tied them up with cable ties, walked out with the laptop and cell phones and drove away.
Investigators traced the vehicle to Gqoloda’s girlfriend’s home where a phone matching one of the stolen ones was found.
