JOHANNESBURG SOUTH – A warning has been issued by Mondeor SAPS Sector Two CPF’s Michelle Pelser about a notable increase in street robberies.
There have been reports by the CPF and by the young victims’ parents in the past weeks of school children in a number of suburbs in the South and Alberton being targeted for their cellphone’s.
These criminals are well-dressed and approach school-going children and other people on the street claiming they have temporary work for them. Many agree because the jobs offered are not too strenuous and the money is good for a few minutes’ worth of work.
In early February, three young girls were approached outside an Alberton school by a woman asking if they wanted to help her pack boxes for a payment of R130. The catch was that the girls had to hand over their cellphones as security that they wouldn’t steal anything from the woman.
Mondeor SAPS Sector 2 CPF’s Michelle Pelser said: “The woman carried on about how she had to make sure they (the girls and the man) wouldn’t steal from her so she would need to ‘mark’ the phones, before she would be able to allow them to come and work for her.
“The man, and one of the young girls’ two friends handed their phones to the woman, but one friend changed her mind and took her phone back. The woman told them all that she would go and put stickers on the phones so that the phones would all be easily identified, and no stealing could take place. Then she and the man went around the corner, and disappeared, with the one girls’ cellphone.”
The man is suspected to have been working with the woman, who was pretending to be offering temporary work.
Other unsuspecting residents have also been robbed of their gadgets on the street by criminals who do not even bother to con them first.
