According to Denise Curry, chairperson of the Boksburg North Sector One CPF, Thulani Mayindi, a petrol attendant, noticed that a vehicle that arrived at the station to be filled with R400 of petrol did not have any licence plates.
“Mayindi said the occupants of the vehicle acted suspicious so while he cleaned the windscreen of the vehicle he memorised the licence plate number that was on the licence disk on the windscreen,” says Curry.
She adds that Mayindi asked another attendant, Petrus Sebande, to memorise the details as well.
The driver of the vehicle then left the service station without paying for the petrol.
Curry says the two attendants immediately contacted the CPF number (082 88 99 260) to report the crime.
She adds that she tried to calm them down in order to get all the relevant and correct information to enable the Impala Park CPF patrollers to take action.
“Members of the CPF went to the service station, while I contacted all Impala Park CPF patrollers on their radio network to be on urgent lookout, and also relayed the ‘lookout’ details to Brandon Scott and Clive Patterson and their patrollers of the Benoni CPF,” she says.
Curry adds that Patterson and his patrollers were busy with a CPF operation in the Western Extension area and within minutes reported that they had found the suspects in the same area.
“Our patrollers went to the scene and identified the vehicle and the Benoni SAPS were called to investigate,” she says.
“When they arrived the perpetrators admitted guilt and offered to pay for the petrol they had stolen earlier.”
Louis van der Westhuizen, the owner of the service station, was not prepared to accept the “admission of guilt” offer and insisted that the men pay for their crime.
She adds that the Benoni SAPS arrested the perpetrators and took them to the Boksburg North SAPS, to be locked up.
