‘Taken to the cleaners’
Cellphone technology played a big role in tracking down the culprits.
A CLEANER at the movie house at Shelly Centre has been arrested after allegedly stealing a woman’s handbag while she was watching an afternoon show last Friday.
The woman’s handbag, which contained cash and an Apple iPhone, was placed on the floor in the aisle. When the movie finished, the woman leaned across to pick up her bag but it was no longer there.
However, the couple, on holiday from Gauteng, was able to track the location of the stolen phone using a tracking app downloaded to the device. The signal indicated that the phone was at a house in Shelly Beach. They alerted the police.
Warrant Officer Johan Zandberg and Constable Oscar Msomi went to the house and confronted a 26-year-old man who showed them the phone which had been hidden in a plastic bag behind a cupboard. Police arrested the man and later arrested the cleaner at the Shelly Centre.
Both appeared at the Port Shepstone Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday this week. The man appeared for possession of stolen property and the woman for theft.
Owners of smartphones are encouraged to download and activate one of the the tracking apps available for their phones. In the event of the phone being stolen, the owner can trace it and report the location to the police. This saves the police valuable manhours and will help speed up the process of reuniting owner and phone.
