Title: Armed robbery in
"Resident arrived home at 7pm. As he turned in the driveway, he noticed out the corner of his eye a car driving slowly past him. Weary from a very long day, he took a little longer than usual to get his car into position in the garage that faces directly onto the street and before he closed the garage door, he felt a presence of other people and a gentle tap on his shoulder.
Three men were in his garage. They were calm. There was one leader who did all the talking in a local Xhosa accent. They were all dressed in the same ‘uniform’ that looked like dark blue security outfits, no balaclavas; all armed with pistols that were not out of the ordinary and to the untrained eye, could’ve been standard police or security issue.
The resident was told to turn his eyes away from them and to close the garage door. The intruders were aware that he could press any other panic button and ensured that he pushed the correct remote for the garage door.
The leader entered the house and found the wife who was certainly confused to see him, but because of his calm uniformed appearance, she thought that he was perhaps a new ‘guard’ or similar contractor in the area. He asked who else was in the house, found the child, then led both wife and child to a room where the husband joined them and all three were instructed to lie face down on the floor.
The resident wonders if it may be a standard line or maybe they have specific knowledge, but still, the intruders asked to be shown the safe.
One intruder went with the husband to the safe, one stayed with the wife and child, and the third went through cupboards and drawers in other rooms, emptying out the contents.
Wallets were emptied out, and it seemed the leader could not clearly differentiate between membership/club cards and bank cards. He asked for PIN numbers of some of them.
The whole incident lasted 25 minutes and after they had loaded bags into the resident’s car in the garage, the intruders locked the residents in a bedroom. When the husband saw the car leaving the property, he climbed out the bedroom window and alerted neighbours to contact ADT and SAPS.
What was stolen: a lazer blue Mini Cooper S Clubman CA665653, jewellery, laptops, external hardrive (still attached to laptop), video & digital cameras, sets of keys, cellphones, whisky, wallets, valuable shoes. The flatscreen plasma TV was not stolen. (The 4WD Jeep could’ve been an option instead of the Mini, but it was loaded with kid's things that would’ve needed to be unpacked first.)
All three intruders frequently spoke on their cellphones. The resident believes they were talking to scouts who were outside the property, either directly outside or driving in the vicinity. A neighbour later said that when she drove past, she'd noticed a car that she didn’t recognise standing across the driveway with two guys sitting in it, and she had thought it odd.
There were only two occasions when the intruders looked edgy – when the residents took a long time to find the keys to the safe, and when the residents could not remember the PIN number for a bank card and the leader threatened that ‘there’d be trouble’ if a number was wrong – but at no time was a gun pointed.
The resident emphasises that the intruders were calm, well organised, well-spoken, neat, and conveyed a very strong ‘sense of place’. If they were to be seen driving around in our neighbourhood, they would not necessarily raise suspicion, as they looked exactly like professional contractors out to deal with a security matter. (And this is exactly what they were – albeit from the other side of the security curtain.)
ADT and SAPS were called and arrived promptly. "
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