The owner of Xtreme Padel in Midrand warns community after recent break-ins
A Midrand resident is turning a fourth break-in into a message of awareness for the wider community.
Ganas Naidoo, owner of Xtreme Padel in Midrand, experienced the company’s most recent break-in attempt in the early hours of March 30, when intruders breached the property at around 04:20, but were foiled by a security alarm before they could steal anything.
The incident followed a calculated pattern. At 10pm the previous evening, the electric fence’s alarm triggered an alert. Security company TRSS was called and found nothing wrong.
At 2am, the fence’s alarm went off again. Believing it to be a fault, Naidoo’s team switched it off, and the thieves struck two hours later.
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“They [TRSS] tested us twice to see what’s happening,” Naidoo said. “We thought it was faulty, so we switched the fence’s alarm off.”
The intruders removed bricks from a shared perimeter wall to enter the property, broke a side window and forced open a burglar gate before reaching the area housing the padel courts’ solar batteries. A detector picked them up before they could complete the theft.
It was the fourth time the property had been hit through the same entry point. In earlier incidents, thieves had stolen solar batteries and inverters on at least two occasions, including eight batteries from a storeroom in one break-in, and two sets of batteries in another. Naidoo believes the thieves have inside knowledge of the property.
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“Obviously someone is telling them where the stuff is,” he said, adding that workers employed by his original solar installer were among the few people who knew the layout.
“I’m not saying it’s them, but all the people putting in solar panels, just make sure you check out your installers.”
Naidoo said police were aware of the cases but appeared stretched by the volume of solar equipment theft in the area. He noted that Space Age Independent School had experienced similar incidents.
He is now appealing to the broader community to secure solar equipment with steel clamps and ensure robust camera and beam systems are in place.
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