The Community Crime Prevention Organisation (CCPO) and a security company went beyond the call of duty to recover a young man’s stolen cellphone last week.
CCPO committee member, George Snodey said a client’s grandson who ended up in Kingsway Hospital had to endure a bit more pain when he left his phone in the car park and some unscrupulous person found and claimed it.
“Unfortunately for the guy who found it, it was an i-Phone and it had the ‘find my phone’ app installed,” said Snodey. “The phone was first seen to be in Folweni by the owner’s mother, who contacted me in the evening. Not much could be done that late at night, but the next day the phone was found to be active at Kingsway Hospital.”
Snodey called ET Rapid Response South Coast managing member, Tony Lokker and with reaction officer Ashley Naidoo in tow, they made their way to the hospital with Lokker tracking the phone from his phone.
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“After a lengthy process, we were sure we had found the guilty party but seeing all the activity, he realised what was going on and switched it off. We spoke to him and explained we knew where the person who had it lived and worked, and once they switched it back on, we would pick up the signal again and the person in possession would be arrested.
He denied having it but we could see by his reaction that he knew more than he was letting on.” The crime fighters eventually left and not long afterwards, the phone was handed in.
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“One of the benefits of being a CCPO client is that we often go out of our way to help our members. This was another good combined effort and thanks to Tony and Ashley for the assistance,” said Snodey.
“We are aware of the incident and can confirm the phone was handed in by the person who found it,” said general manager of Netcare Kingsway Hospital, Annatjie Demetriou. “We can also confirm that the person who found it was not a Netcare employee. We are unable to comment further.”
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