Police believe they made a significant breakthrough in airport-following robberies after the arrest of six suspects on Friday evening.
Members based at OR Tambo International Airport and the Johannesburg East Cluster, acting on information, monitored a security vehicle and discovered that this vehicle, which is contracted to work at the airport, was following a sedan from the airport travelling towards Sandton, Brig Vishnu Naidoo, police spokesperson, said.
“The security vehicle was stopped and it was discovered that one of the occupants was a security company manager who is wanted for a case of possession of an unlicensed firearm and an armed robbery in Limpopo. The security company manager, as well as a second occupant in the security vehicle, were arrested,” Naidoo said.
The team worked throughout the night and during the early hours of Saturday morning arrested a further four suspects in the Hillbrow area. All six suspects are between 23 and 38 years of age. A seventh suspect managed to escape and is still at large.
Naidoo said several incriminating items, including the security vehicle, a sedan, passports, at least 15 cellular phones and several luggage bags had been recovered in Hillbrow. The team also recovered two pistols which would be sent for ballistic testing to establish which crimes, if any, they might have been used in.
The team is also investigating the possibility that these may have been the same suspects that were responsible for the robbery of seven foreign visitors on Colette Drive on Thursday night.
The deputy national commissioner responsible for policing, Lt Gen Fanie Masemola, complimented both the teams of OR Tambo International Airport as well as the Johannesburg East cluster for a job well done. “The sterling work by these teams has brought us a step closer to cracking these incidents of ‘airport-following’ robberies and they must be commended,” he said.
