LIMPOPO – Police spokesperson Lt Col Moatshe Ngoepe says the police are strongly urging Limpopo residents to be vigilant this festive season, especially woman who are participating in the Stockvel Social Clubs, to stop distributing their collected money in cash.
“As the police, we have made this earnest call throughout the year, as part of our ongoing crime awareness campaigns but some of our communities, have ignored it.”
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This stems from two separate incidents, in the Tzaneen area in which women’s stockvels were robbed a large amount of cash.
In the Bolobedu Policing area outside Tzaneen, a 54-year-old woman was robbed of stockvel cash amount immediately after arriving home from the bank.
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“At about 12:00 midday, on Thursday 30 November, the victim entered her room at Ga-Mamaila when two unknown cars stopped in front of her gate. Three unknown men entered her room and demanded money,” Ngoepe explains.
The suspects threatened the woman until she was robbed of R2 900 cash and fled the scene.
Meanwhile in Modjiadjiskloof, also outside Tzaneen, a 42-year-old woman was robbed of stockvel money at Goudplas on Saturday night.
“The victim was asleep when six armed suspects forcefully broke into her house and robbed her of R6 000 cash as well as Christmas clothing for her children before fleeing the scene.”
Ngoepe has advised members of these social clubs to utilize electronic transactions to distribute their money with respective banks, instead of distributing cash in order to prevent these types of events from happening.
The suspects in both matters are still unknown and as a result, no arrests have been made.
Anyone with information about the suspects are asked to contact Lt Colonel Cecil Machimani at 082 451 7181; the crime stop number 0860010111 or the crime line sms 32211.
