About 07:30, an armoured G4S vehicle, accompanied by a bakkie of escort guards, was shot at with automatic weapons by assailants in two vehicles, some of which weapons were later recovered at the scene. The guards in the bakkie returned fire.
Three vehicles were hijacked by the assailants at the scene to use as getaway vehicles. These were later found abandoned in various locations. It was also found that one of the vehicles first driven by the assailants had been hijacked in a previous incident in Gauteng.
Mia Louw was driving from Mbombela to Barberton with her mother when they noticed a vehicle stop in front of the G4S van a distance in front of them. “Being from the Lowveld, I immediately realised it was a cash-in-transit heist, and knew we had to get out of there.”
Louw quickly halted her car. “That’s when I saw the men with their balaclavas and automatic guns.”
Louw had to make a forced manoeuvre to be able to turn her bakkie around on the narrow road. She noticed other cars on the road doing the same. “I was so focused on getting out of there, but my mother said she could see the money truck had also turned around.”
The armoured vehicle’s tyre had been shot, and Louw’s mother, Cisca van der Merwe, said it looked as though it was struggling to drive.
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“We drove for a while until we got to a hill and thought we would be safe. We could still hear the gunshots for a while; about 10 minutes, I would guess.”
Two guards were injured during the incident and have been taken for medical treatment. The assailants fled with no money. It is believed that some of the suspects were also wounded during the shoot-out.
Louw and her mother took another road to Mbombela, where they met the armoured vehicle at the Brinkspruit River Bridge. “We saw the car and the security guards. They said they thought some farmers also came out and started shooting at the robbers.”
The road remained closed until 14:00 as the police processed the scene.
