IT took three armed men nearly two hours to crawl past security measures protecting an Empangeni home last week.
Chilling security footage shows the men leopard crawling underneath beams, quietly forcing windows open and slithering into the Naicker family home in Kelly Road.
Bobby Naicker was woken by his 19-year-old son Brady at around 4am.
Seconds later a loaded gun was shoved in his face, the trigger man quietly informing him to keep quiet.
This is the latest incident of housebreaking and armed robbery plaguing Empangeni residents.
Harrowing tale
Naicker told the Zululand Observer how three men entered his home in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
‘They first went to my son’s room, tying up his hands before telling him to wake me up and tell me to stay quiet.
‘The one guy pulled the magazine out of his gun, showing my son the bullets. He told him if he shouted, he would empty that magazine into him.’
Naicker, his wife Radha and teenage sons, Brady and 15-year-old Braden, were tied up with cellphone charger cords while the thugs rifled through their belongings.
‘They kept asking my wife where the safe was,’ said Naicker.
‘We don’t have a safe, but they seemed convinced there was one.’
The robbers had been inside their home for only 20 minutes when the alarm was triggered, sparking armed response from the security company.
‘They panicked and ran, struggling to find a way out. They eventually broke another burglar guard and jumped over the back wall.’
Sadly, this is not the first time the Naicker family have been held up by armed gunmen, escaping both times with only mental scars.
‘Fifteen years ago my house in Sigma Crescent was also broken into. I sold that house and moved here, hoping it would be safer.’
Naicker says he has spent a small fortune fortifying his home.
‘And it was for nothing. We are just very grateful that we were not harmed.’
The robbers, described as three young men, one of them with a foreign accent, made off with five cell phones, cash, a laptop and jewellery.
Police confirmed a case of housebreaking and armed robbery had been opened and that no arrests had been made at the time of going to print.
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