Fochville CPF’s chairperson, Mr JC van der Merwe, says an alert CPF member spotted a silver Ford Bantam bakkie with a handcuffed man at the back.
He was driving near the Klipdrift turn-off on the N12 from Potchefstroom towards Fochville at 12:23 on 30 November.
The victim tried to get the attention of other motorists, but when the driver noticed, he stopped, beat the victim up and put him back on the bakkie. “The driver is not very neat. I think there is a big problem here,” the member reported.
The CPF immediately notified the police in Fochville and told them to wait for the bakkie at the four-way to Carletonville. Some members continued to follow the bakkie so they would not lose sight of the vehicle.
When the police pulled the Ford Bantam over, they found that the man at the back had been kid- napped in Klerksdorp, allegedly after an illegal diamond deal had gone wrong. Both men in the cab and the victim were arrested at the scene.
In another incident, security cameras alerted law enforcers to a suspicious blue/green Toyota Tazz entering Fochville on 30 November. An alert member of the public spotted the vehicle at President Hyper and members of the Fochville CPF raced to the scene and caught the driver and his passengers. The police arrested them officially. The vehicle was the same one used by the vehicle thieves who had stolen an Isuzu bakkie at Master Drilling the week before. It was later determined that the Tazz was also a stolen vehicle with cloned number plates.
