THE theft of tyres is on the increase in the north Durban area and the thieves are targeting all four wheels of cars they can get their hands on.
The Beachwood Mangroves Nature Reserve’s trailer was targeted as well as an Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife vehicle. Reserve manager at Beachwood, Basil Pather, said the thieves had stolen eight tyres in total.
“There seems to be a group of guys targeting vehicles in the area. They stole all four tyres of a Ezemvelo vehicle which was parked at the reserve awaiting repair. The men, on a separate occasion, stole four more tyres from a trailer,” he said.
A few weeks ago, the tyres of the Greenwood Park SAPS mobile trailer was also stolen. Another resident, Glenashley’s Bart Fokken’s trailer was also targeted and all four wheels were stolen.
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Durban North spokesman, Capt Raymond Deokaran, said the thieves may be operating in the area.
“Last year we had a spate of incidents and it seems the thieves are back. We’ve had three cases in the last 12 days. I’m urging residents to take the necessary precautions, we suspect the thieves are selling the tyres to second-hand dealers. Thieves work together to jack a car up onto a set of blocks. Once the car is in the air, the thieves each take a side and go to work on pulling the wheels off the vehicle.
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“Two preventative measures are when you turn your wheels when parking. This makes the wheels harder to remove. The second is to use wheel locks on each wheel, including your spare. The locks fit on each wheel and make the lug nuts extremely difficult to remove without a key,” he said.
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