Police have arrested two more men believed to have been involved in the armed robbery at the Sappi Adamas Mill on Sunday morning (See: Shots Fired in Burman Road Armed Robbery) after tracking a guard’s GPS Locator to their home.
Metro Security Services Operations Director, Kaashief Niekerk, said the robbers had raided the guardhouse during the robbery on Sunday, and among the items stolen was a GPS locator, used by the guards on patrol.
“We issue our guards with these locators as a safety precaution, as well as a monitoring device, so that we can monitor them while they are doing their perimeter patrols,” he said.
Niekerk said when they realised that the GPS locator was missing, they checked their systems and found that the device was still on.
“We were able to trace it to an exact address in Jali Street, Kwazakhele and immediately handed this information over to the police,” he said.
Niekerk said police acted on the information and raided the house during the early hours of this morning where they recovered the stolen device and arrested two men.
Niekerk said it was refreshing to see brazen criminals, who had openly taunted police during an exchange of gunfire on Sunday, caught through their own stupidity.
Niekerk said the success was a clear example of how police and private security companies could work together to fight crime and praised a recent initiative launched between the Mount Road Police Cluster and a number of private security companies in the Port Elizabeth area.
“We recently entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the South African Police Service’s Mount Road Cluster, wherein we undertook to share information relating to criminal activity with the police.”
“This is a clear example of how such an arrangement has lead to the arrest of dangerous criminals,” he said.
Metro Security Services Operations Director, Kaashief Niekerk
