The eMalahleni community is vulnerable as criminals are constantly on the lookout for those in need of transportation and exploiting them.
In two separate incidents, unsuspecting hitchhikers became crime statistics.
The first incident happened on Thursday, April 25, when a man was hiking home from work when he was offered a ride.
According to the man, the commencement of the incident was suspicious because the silver car was already full of four men, “I told them that if there was no space in the car, I might as well wait to hike another. Instead, they insisted that I hop inside the vehicle,” said the man.
As they drove away, the man explained that two of the four suspects he was sitting with at the back, began pointing knives at him and that the driver and one of the passengers were armed with firearms.
“I was told to be calm and not move, otherwise they would kill me,” added the man.
It is alleged that the suspects took the man to an old farm. They then apparently seized his two cellphones from his pockets and ordered that he hand over his money, “I handed them my wallet, which only contained R50, my bank cards, and the cellphones that I had in my pocket,” he explained.
The suspects allegedly asked for his bank card PINs.
He said he didn’t want to give them the one with the most money, so he contacted his brother to send him money so they couldn’t access the one with the most.
“I had to convince my brother to send me money since I told them that the bank card containing the money was with my wife,” he explained.
The suspects allegedly told him they would murder him, so he had to admit that he did have the bank card with him, “I gave them my PIN, and they urged me to run and never look back,” he said.
A similar incident happened on the same day.
According to a man heading toward Nelspruit he was offered a lift in a small bakkie.
The man recounted, that they drove along the edges of a local mall to fill up at one of the petrol stations nearby, “They filled petrol simply to make it seem like we were taking the correct route heading to Nelspruit,” said the man.
When nearing the toll gate, the driver allegedly stopped the bakkie on the side of the road, and the five suspects in the back jumped off and walked to the man’s side of the bakkie, demanding that he open the window.
“I did not open the window, so the driver stepped out of the bakkie, and one of the suspects began pointing a firearm at me, directing me to hand over my cellphone, and out of fear, I gave it to him,” said the man.
The man managed to battle with the suspects after they opened his door and he ran into the middle of the road to stop the cars and ask for aid.
“I pulled over one of the cars because the highway wasn’t frequently busy in the early morning hours. When the suspects discovered that I required assistance, they drove away fearful of being spotted or caught,” he added.
The suspects fled with the complainant’s bag, which contained clothes, a tablet, a passport, and a wallet, as well as his cellphone.
These are continuing cases, and the police are still investigating.
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