A suspect was arrested after being found in possession of stolen copper cables at Cydna substation on Friday morning, April 15.
City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena said the illegal Zimbabwean migrant was arrested by City Power security after stealing copper cables at a Melrose-based substation.
“The arrest comes after an armed robbery at the same Substation where criminals held up City Power contracted security guards at gunpoint and stole 12 copper cables from the high voltage yard.”
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“The robbery took place a day before two security guards were gunned down after transporting burnt out copper cabling away from the disaster site,” said Mangena.
The security officers, contracted to City Power, were patrolling some of the cable theft hotspots around Newtown when they were ambushed by an unknown number of men at around 22:00 on March 31.
The security officers had just completed a task of escorting a City Power truck transporting tons and tons of the burned copper cables from Inner-city underground tunnels fire to the utility’s Salvage Yard at the head office in Booysens.
While inspecting a well-known entry point to the Johannesburg city’s underground tunnels, the duo was gunned down and robbed of one of their service firearms.
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