Eight armed robbers storm company

Terrified employees had to endure ten minutes of hell when eight heavily-armed robbers blatantly walked in and robbed Sahara Computers in Midrand on Thursday morning.

According to Stephen Nel, an executive director at the company, one of the eight robbers was one of their own employees who have been working at the company for the past 12 months.

He said the employee worked in the control room that monitored all entrances and exits.

“The employee showed up for work at around 06:30 and told the controller that he forgot something in the control room. When he entered, he held the employee at gunpoint while opening the doors for the seven other robbers,” Nel said.

It is suspected that he drove the get-away vehicle.

The robbers rounded up all the employees and took them to the second level where they were commanded to lie down and to not make a sound. “They barked orders and said that they would shoot us if we made a sound. I managed to hide my cellular phone in my pocket,” Nel said.

When the coast was clear, Nel managed to phone one of the employees who was not at work to inform him about the armed robbery situation.

The police was called to the scene. Nel said it seemed like the robbers were spooked in some way and fled the scene within ten minutes after arriving. He said they were still unsure as to what was stolen.

“The robbers also hijacked one of our employees who were on her way to work at the business park. They took her Ford Figo but it was later retrieved in Thembisa,” he said.

Nel said that some staff members suffered minor injuries.