Rubber robbers
Thieves tied up security and impersonated him while stealing 29 tyres through a fence.
Thieves made off with 29 truck tyres from a logistics company in Naauwpoort after a robbery that sounds like the plot of a Hollywood movie.
Just after midnight on March 26, approximately seven suspects skilfully evaded the automated alarm system attached to the electric fence at the company and dug a hole big enough for them to get under the fence and into the yard.
All of this was captured on CCTV.
According to the guard on duty, who was in the guard room with his guard dog, he was feeling cold and went to get a jacket.
It was during this time that he was allegedly accosted by the thieves, who broke a window in the guard house and pointed a firearm at him.
They instructed him to tie up the guard dog, which he did, to some burglar bars.
The men then guided him outside, where they tied him up and hid him away in some bushes.
The guard was out of sight and earshot of anyone who could help.
The suspects then proceeded to break open the lock to the store room, where spare tyres for the business’s trucks were kept.
They casually rolled each tyre to the fence, and through an even bigger hole they had dug without even trying to hide from CCTV cameras or other people.
While they were committing the theft, some men nonchalantly pretended to be guards working at the yard and merrily opened and closed the gate for trucks entering and exiting the yard, while the other men continued with the large-scale theft operation.
Nobody suspected anything, and no alarms were triggered.
At approximately 04:00, after the guard thought it was safe, he managed to leopard crawl over 200m whilst still being tied up.
It was then that he managed to call for help, and people realised a robbery had been committed.
The suspects knew how to evade electric fence alarms, and how not to raise suspicion, and the guard heard them discussing being careful not to trigger any alarms.
Thankfully, the guard and the dog were left unharmed.
“Logistics companies that store tyres on-site should be aware that criminals are getting better at outsmarting security systems, and these are possibly well-planned crimes, not just crimes of opportunity,” said police spokesperson Eddie Hall.
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