Fake robbery an alleged ploy to steal firearms
The alleged house robbery in which nine firearms were taken from a farm near Klipkoppie Dam earlier this week took a bizarre turn on Wednesday.
“It was all a lie,” said the spokesman for White River Police Station, Sgt Cynthia Mbokodo. The initial case of house robbery was changed to perjury against the very man who initially reported the robbery in the early hours of Monday.
The owner of the farm (Embizeni) requested to remain anonymous. He said Joshua Roux (22), a son of a friend from Durban, had looked after his house while he was in the Kruger National Park.
He had been residing with the owner for the past six months, helping him with chores on the farm, which is known for boasting some of the area’s rarest clivias.
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Mbokodo said Roux initially alleged that he was overpowered by three suspects at around 01:45 on Monday. “He said he was going to the kitchen when he saw movement in the house.
As he went back to his room, a suspect apparently approached him and put a knife to his neck. He was instructed to take the suspect and his two accomplices to the safe from which the weapons were taken,” said Mbokodo.
Roux initially said six weapons were taken, and the suspects left. But his story did not fool the investigating officer, who upon his return to the scene on Wednesday, found that Roux had wilfully told an untruth.
“He had staged the whole ‘farm attack’,” Mbokodo said. Some of the weapons he alleged had been stolen were thrown into a nearby farm dam.
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It is alleged that he would later retrieve the weapons to be sold. Upon investigation, it was established that Roux had retrieved two of the weapons from the dam and had hidden them along with two more in the garden.
The remaining weapons were recovered from the dam by the Ehlanzeni Diving Unit on Wednesday. Even though the exact purpose of his actions is not known, it is believed that some of the weapons were destined for Durban, where his parents reside.
He would have returned home on Sunday. “I trusted him and never suspected anything,” the owner said. Roux appeared in the White River Magistrate’s Court yesterday.
He will remain custody until his next appearance on December 5.
