Car wolves in sheep’s clothing are behind most of the crime at busy shopping centres in Laudium where motorists are robbed, Laudium Plaza security guard Pule Moagi said this week.
He said bogus car guards were mostly responsible for crime in parking areas. “They use different methods to steal what is inside the cars, sometime they jam the vehicle’s locking system and sometimes they smash the car windows using spark plugs.”
Moagi said the bogus car guards had been hanging around the plaza for quite a while. “It does not look as if they will leave the area soon. Police have tried different methods to chase them away but they keep coming back.”
Most vehicle owners complained about the cars being broken into while they were shopping.
“These guys target items such as laptops, smartphones, tablets, handbags and sunglasses,” Moagi said, adding that most of the bogus car guards were nyaope addicts. “Some of them smoke it right in front of everybody, and it becomes a problem when the drug leaves their system. This is when they want more of it, and they start to commit more crimes.”
Disgruntled resident Fareed Andrews said she was tired of holding on to her handbag and worrying about her car while she was shopping. “The crime at Laudium Plaza seem to be escalating almost every day, and the police are not doing anything about it, last week my brother’s car was broken into. The car radio, and other accessories were stolen and whenever one comes here, we need to hold on tight to our handbags, because you don’t know who can grab it and run away.”
She said if the centre management could improve security, crime would decrease. “If the security guards in the shopping centre were beefed up and some patrolled the parking bays, things would be better, and the centre must also try and get uniformed car guards that are registered,” said Andrews.
Laudium police station spokesperson Captain Reed Steynberg said the problem at Laudium Plaza was not new. “This problem has been going on for seven years, we have arrested several people in the past, but we cannot tell those bogus car guards not to hang around the plaza.”
Steynberg said the problem with the Laudium community was that they never reported crime at the police. “If residents do not report these crimes at the police station there is nothing that the police can do because their hands would be tied.”
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