MBOMBELA – An unknown number of suspects are still at large after they were involved in a rather unusual armed robbery at Debonairs Pizza at Westend shopping centre on Sunday.
According to police spokesman Capt Dawie Pretorius, the case is still under investigation and it is unclear at this stage exactly how many suspects were involved.
It is alleged that a suspect entered the shop at around 20:00.
Pretending to be a customer, he whispered to the cashier to give him the money in the cash register while carefully lifting his shirt, showing her that he was armed.
Lowvelder spoke to a patron who was in the store at the time. With him was his wife, who is 39 weeks pregnant. He described the suspects as extremely calm and said they couldn’t believe how the robbery had transpired.
The man added that, after the cashier had opened the register, the suspect put on a black glove and proceeded to remove the cash. The man told his wife to stay calm and that they should slowly try to exit and pretend like nothing was happening.
They saw the door was open just big enough for one person to fit through and that it was guarded by another suspect.
The latter moved his index finger from side to side, signalling that they weren’t going anywhere. “Only then did we realise that this was really happening,” he said.
The couple slowly turned around and, sat down and started taking out their valuables to hand over. The suspect guarding the door told her that they were neither there to harm them, nor to take their possessions as they were only there for the money. “We initially thought that it was another client, or a family member of the cashier. They must be trained professionals. They never spoke to each other, never shouted and never waved a gun around.”
One of the suspects went to the back and presumably emptied the safe. They were joined by another, who according to the victim, was probably holding employees hostage at the back of the store. A Volkswagen Polo, with registration number FYS 940 MP was already parked as a getaway vehicle.
The suspect then walked out, unhurried and got into the vehicle.
The man guarding the door gave the couple a thumbs-up, “almost like he was saying thank you for being so calm,” and the thieves slowly drove away with the undisclosed amount of cash.
“We never thought that we will become part of the statistics this way. The whole robbery lasted about five minutes, but it felt like an hour.”
He made alarm on the Zello channel, after which Nelspruit Concerned Citizens, ACS Security, Hi-Tech Security Nelspruit and the SAPS arrived within three minutes.
The getaway car was later spotted on the R40 by Mr Ruan Mathee of Hi-Tech Security Nelspruit, heading towards White River at speeds in excess of 180 kilometres per hour with no regard for red traffic lights. They managed to evade Mathee.
