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INLSA<\/p>\n
Kuben Govender sits on his car bonnet after helping metro police officers to arrest an SAPS officer and two men impersonating policemen who allegedly robbed him.\tPicture: DOCTOR NGCOBO<\/p>\n
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Taking matters into his own hands, a Durban cigarette vendor who was allegedly robbed by a policeman and two other men impersonating police officers has helped to bring some of the suspected culprits to book. <\/p>\n
Earlier this week, 35-year-old Kuben Govender teamed up with metro police officers to arrest three men. <\/p>\n
Govender said the men had approached him at his store on Parthenon Street at the Phoenix Plaza, flashed police badges and demanded his cigarettes. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey were wearing SAPS jackets and demanded to know who my supplier was, and said I would be arrested for selling counterfeit cigarettes,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI told them the cigarettes were legal, but a gun was pointed at me.\u201d <\/p>\n
Govender was then taken without his consent to his house in Phoenix. <\/p>\n
There, Govender said, the men wanted to search his house, but they left when his brother told them they could not do so without a warrant. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey left with R400 of my cash and took R1 000 worth of cigarettes. That is when I assumed they were corrupt, and I was afraid to open a case because they knew where I lived.\u201d <\/p>\n
Govender said he had then made it his mission to track down the men. <\/p>\n
He said he searched townships around Phoenix and for the men\u2019s Toyota Avanza. <\/p>\n
\u201cI could not allow them to get away with what they did,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cBy chance, I saw the white Avanza on Wednesday driving towards Phoenix Plaza. I had to be careful, so I followed them with my car and phoned Sergeant Imraan Moolla, of the KwaMashu metro police crime prevention unit.\u201d <\/p>\n
When the men tried to flee, Govender drove in front of their car and blocked them. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey tried to reverse, but the metro police arrived and blocked them off as well. They then arrested the three men.\u201d <\/p>\n
Govender said he immediately identified two of the men as those who had robbed him a week earlier. <\/p>\n
Police spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Vincent Mdunge confirmed yesterday that one of the men was a warrant officer. He is believed to be based at an SAPS satellite police station in the city centre. <\/p>\n
The other two men were impersonating police officers. One of them had a fake police appointment certificate and had been a police reservist in 2010. <\/p>\n
Mdunge said the trio were believed to be linked to several robberies in Phoenix, including one at an ATM at the Phoenix Plaza where a woman was robbed of cash and jewellery. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe men were found in possession of cigarettes, cash and jewellery taken during the robberies.\u201d <\/p>\n
They would be charged with robbery and pointing a firearm, and would appear in court soon. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
INLSA Kuben Govender sits on his car bonnet after helping metro police officers to arrest an SAPS officer and two men impersonating policemen who allegedly robbed him. Picture: DOCTOR NGCOBO Taking matters into his own hands, a Durban cigarette vendor who was allegedly robbed by a policeman and two other men impersonating police officers has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-10718","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10718\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}