Linden Police Station has made inroads in its Cresta Shopping Centre robbery investigation.
They arrested two more suspects who were involved in the robbery, who had managed to evade security that was giving chase. This brings the number of suspects arrested to five and one more suspect is still at large.
The six suspects targeted Totalsport and managed to take cell phones, jackets and other goods worth R35 000.
READ: Police arrest suspects following 2nd armed robbery at Cresta in 2 months
Station Commander Ahmed Zaieed Musthan is thrilled at the breakthrough by his officers but is especially grateful to the security companies who assisted in the arrest of the suspects.
Musthan especially thanked Prince Dube from Fidelity Security who shot one of the armed suspects during a shootout outside the mall while trying to escape.
Tshepo Moeng from Popo Protection Services and Mpho Mofokeng, a store manager at Cresta Shopping Centre also assisted in the arrests while chasing the suspects on foot.
“I want to thank them for the wonderful work they do in the community. Those suspects will not hesitate to kill anyone, so the security officers did a fantastic job,” said Musthan. “I want the community to understand why, that when incidents such as this occur, security companies are the first to arrive at the scene,” he said.
“For security companies, they could have about five vehicles patrolling a single area while our police have 33 suburbs to patrol and only one vehicle is available per 10 suburbs.
So when a criminal incident occurs, it will be the security companies who arrive first at the scene. Security companies also have an advantage over the police because people tend to call them first because they will press the panic button and then contact the police a while after.”
All the stolen goods were recovered by police as well as a knife, a firearm, five cartridges on the scene and ammunition.
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