Detective Constable Morwamocha Harry Maloka of the Douglasdale police started investigating a case of housebreaking and possession of housebreaking implements in 2012.
The suspect was a 36-year-old Mozambican man by the name of Sergio Tsanba. On 16 March 2012 the suspect was arrested at a Douglasdale home at 4:30am. The case was transferred to the Randburg Magistrate’s Court and when Tsanba made a bail application Maloka began profiling him.
He found that Tsanba had been the suspect in a number of similar housebreaking and house robbery cases in the Douglasdale area but was never arrested. Housebreaking refers to a break-in while the residents are not inside the house while a house robbery occurs when a suspect breaks in while the residents are in the house.
Maloka also obtained dockets from Sandton Police Station in which Tsanba had been the prime suspect in two other cases of housebreaking.
Due to Maloka’s relentlessness in his investigation of the original case, Tsanba’s case was finally heard in the Randburg Magistrate’s Court in February this year.
He was sentenced to four counts of housebreaking and one count of house robbery. He was sentenced to five years for the first count, 15 years for the second, five years for the third, four years for the fourth and four years for the fifth. Altogether the total sentence given to Tsanba was 25 years in prison.
“It needs a lot of effort to complete these types of cases,” Maloka said. “I just remember to stick to my motive, which is to get a conviction. That’s when I feel like I do my job properly.”
