What started as a normal Tuesday morning (September 15) rush hour in Klerksdorp, North West, quickly turned into an action movie when a young man from Johannesburg became an unlikely hero.

Tiaan Craucamp (28) was talking to his boss when a man allegedly snatched his new iPhone from his hand. Craucamp chased him for four blocks before confronting him, pushing him against a taxi and retrieving his phone.

After a video of the incident was posted on the Klerksdorp Rekord Facebook page, residents nicknamed Craucamp ‘Superman’, ‘Johnny Bravo’, and even ‘Mike Bolhuis’.

And, as one resident pointed out, this was not ‘Hugo, phone the police’ – a reference to the viral South African video from 2019 – but rather ‘Hugo, phone Tiaan.’

After all, chasing an alleged thief for four blocks and retrieving his cellphone without using force is not something everyone would have the courage to do.

“I was just tired of people taking from us and taking and taking, and we just stand there and let them take what belongs to us,” Craucamp, a Johannesburg resident, told Caxton Network News today (September 18).

Craucamp said he did not think twice when his iPhone – purchased two days earlier and worth R45 000 – was snatched. “I just decided there and then that I was going to take it back.”

‘I am not the most patient driver’

Salomé Kotze, editor of the Klerksdorp Rekord, was on her way to the office when she saw the commotion unfolding. Being a journalist, she immediately took out her cellphone and started recording.

“I was behind a taxi that was driving slowly, and I am not the most patient driver,” she said.

She said they were stopped at a traffic light when a young man asked the taxi driver if he could climb in. Once he was in the vehicle and the light had turned green, the taxi pulled off slowly.

At the next traffic light, she saw a man pull open the door of the taxi, grab the young man by his shirt and push him against the vehicle, before taking a cellphone from him.

It was Craucamp, who had caught up with the alleged thief.

Married for only about two months, Craucamp said his wife was furious when she heard what had happened. “She told me that she could have become a widow,” he said with a grin.

“And in retrospect, I realised that what I did could potentially have cost me my life.”

Craucamp said he had already had three cellphones stolen and was determined not to lose a fourth one.

He joked that he is overweight and unfit. “I didn’t know how it was possible to run so fast.”

“I didn’t phone the police. I let him go and he went his own way.”

His lesson

Craucamp said the incident had taught him an important lesson: Never stand on the pavement, even in Klerksdorp, with your cellphone against your ear.

“You never know when someone is going to grab it.”

Watch video here: