VEREENIGING. – Five Vereeniging police officers said to have extorted R6 000 from a shop owner, returned the money, at the instruction of a superior officer recently.
The last nail in the coffin was when the shop owner contacted a superior police officer and reported the incident last Tuesday at around 10: 00 am.
The superior officer telephonically ordered the officers to return the money after the incident was reported to her.
To add insult to injury the five officers were also picked up by the shop’s surveillance cameras.
The money itself was photographed by the owner of the shop before it was paid out in a police vehicle.
The owner of the store paid the bribe in R 100 and R 200 notes that he had also photographed.
The foreign national, an asylum seeker, required to pay the bribe had valid documents to be in the country. His papers only expire in September this year but he was nevertheless threatened with deportation.
The passage of the vehicle to Sebokeng Home Affairs and the Vereeniging Police Station – to which the asylum seeker was driven – was then electronically tracked. Gafaar Mohamed Abdul (45) said he was instructed to pay the money even though he showed the officers that his papers were in order.
“They first demanded R 30 000 before it was reduced to R10 000.”
Abdul said after approaching another shop owner, he managed to give the police R6 000.
However, he said that, before he could pay cash, he contacted a senior police officer known to him.
“By the time the said officer arrived, the five officers were already gone with the cash.
“However, we were happy later when one police officer brought back the cash.”
Police could not be reached for comment at the time of Sedibeng Ster going to print.
