A suspected vehicle theft syndicate and a hijacking ring have been busted in Gauteng, including a funeral parlour that was housing stolen vehicles.
A suspected vehicle theft syndicate and a hijacking ring have been busted in Gauteng, including a funeral parlour that was housing stolen vehicles.
The Soweto police arrested three men at Ndlovu & Sons Funerals in Orlando East, allegedly the base for the vehicle theft syndicate. Police found three luxury German cars at the parlour and arrested the suspects, who were said to be tampering with the engine number on one of the vehicles, believed to be a car stolen in Florida at the weekend.
Police say they have been monitoring the activities of this parlour for some time, in response to information received from the public.
Meanwhile, three people allegedly involved in a hijacking syndicate have also been arrested at a chop shop in De Deur near Vereeniging.
Police spokeswoman Melanie Britz said the arrests followed two previous raids on the same premises – which resulted in six stolen vehicles being recovered. “The police raided the smallholding again and caught two men, who were busy chopping up a white BMW that was stolen the previous day in Edenvale.”
“Preliminary investigations indicate that the men might be involved in a vehicle theft or hijacking syndicate,” Britz said.
The police this week also uncovered a syndicate that hijacks tyre deliveries with the aid of eblockwatch, a cellphone crime-prevention project launched by a Johannesburg businessman.
The syndicate reportedly sells the tyres cheaply on the black market.
The arrests came after the hijacking of a truck carrying a cargo of new tyres near Lenasia on the south Rand two weeks ago. The driver was on his way to Bloemfontein to deliver the cargo, valued at R140 000.
André Snyman, who launched the eblockwatch project a year ago, received a tip-off from a tyre dealer that someone was trying to sell him new tyres at suspiciously low prices.
Snyman compared a list of the tyres with a list of those stolen near Lenasia and notified the police. It appears the hijackers sold the tyres to Tom Ackerman, owner of Flamigo Tyres, for R30 000. “I truly knew nothing of this. It would never have entered my mind that these were stolen tyres,” Ackerman said.
