OPPORTUNISTIC thieves used a wheelbarrow to smash through the window of a Sunningdale home in a theft case in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
The victim, who wanted to remain anonymous, said his family were awoken by a loud crash at about 3.20am at his home on The Curl.
“My wife works from home so we have an office setup in our home with a sliding door for access. The suspects hurled the wheelbarrow, which was in our garden, through the sliding door window in order to gain access. The loud crash woke me up and I began running towards the sound. As I got closer to the office I could hear frantic scuffling of the suspects’ feet scrambling over the broken glass pieces,” said the 49-year-old victim.
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“They managed to steal my wife’s laptop in the incident. Marshall Security and the Durban North SAPS also responded to the scene and they searched the area for the suspects but were unsuccessful. This is the first crime incident we’ve had in years so I urge other homeowners to be hyper-vigilant as criminals are becoming more desperate,” he said.
The Sunningdale resident is now in the process of adding extra security layers and installing a new sliding security gate.
Craig Adendorff of Sun Cell Watch said he too had noticed a spike in incidents of theft around north Durban.
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“Sun Cell Watch is a WhatsApp alert system and I’ve noticed a massive spike in opportunistic crime in the area. It’s across the policing precinct of Greenwood Park and Durban North. It shows how desparate the criminals have gotten as the spike has been since the end of the hard lockdown,” he said.
He urged residents to joined neighbourhood watch groups or crime alert WhatsApp groups to stay informed and vigilant to crime trends.
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At the time of going to press, the contents of this feature mirrored South Africa’s lockdown regulations.
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