Cable thieves caught red-handed
Two suspects were arrested by Sun Security for cable theft on Monday.
LYDENBURG – Two suspects were arrested by Sun Security for cable theft on Monday. This follows after they received a tip-off from one of their customers.
The culprits have managed to remove almost all the cables in the Lydenburg extension, they emptied the electricity transformers and destroyed the street lights.
The damage is estimated to be worth millions.
According to Mr André Marx, the owner of Sun Security, the client asked them to intervene when he noticed that people had been digging in the area for weeks and nothing was done about it.
“We immediately went to the area, observed from a distance and saw about
15 people digging out cables. We then called the rest of the team and approached them from different directions hoping to catch all of them. However, there was a man who was working with them who saw us and alerted them. We manage to arrest two of them and then called the local police to detain the rest.”
The cables are sold to scrap-yard dealers for money. Marx continued, “We have noticed cable theft was increasing in Lydenburg and as residents we all needed to work with the police to stop these criminals.
“I believe when they were done with areas outside town, they will target the central business district.”
The land that was vandalised allegedly belongs to the Mpumalanga Economic Growth Agency (MEGA). They bought it from the local municipality a few years ago.
Steelburger/Lydenburg News contacted MEGA for information regarding the property, however, by the time of going to print they had not responded.
