More than 17 years after he left his Port Elizabeth flat only to find his 1999 BMW 318 stolen, a doctor will finally be reunited with his beloved vehicle, after police managed to find it.
Celebrating the news that his BMW had been found after being stolen in March 2001, Dr Leod Zondo, 50, took to Twitter last week to commend officers for their persistence and hard work.
Zondo, who now divides his time between practices in Zastron in the Free State and Sterkspruit in the Eastern Cape, said he had long since given up hope that the car would ever be recovered.
“I never thought they’d find it because statistics show once the car is gone, it’s highly unlikely you’ll ever see it again,” Zondo, who was working at Livingstone Hospital at the time of the theft, said.
“I was staying at the Protea Flats in Cape Road.
“I came home from work on the Friday, went to town and then came back after 8pm and went to sleep.
“When I woke up on the Saturday morning . . . my car was not there.”
Zondo reported the theft at the Humewood police station but heard nothing back until an officer phoned him on Wednesday last week to relay the good news.
At first he thought the call was a joke.
“Even now, it’s unbelievable,” Zondo said.
“I’m waiting for the officers to tell me how the procedure works to collect the car.”
Zondo said he continued paying off the stolen car until 2012, and that his insurance did not pay out at the time because he had missed a payment when his salary was deposited later than usual.
He now drives a Mercedes, but Zondo said he intended to fix the BMW and keep it.
“I’ve formed an emotional attachment to it. I really liked that car and it was just a year or so old when I bought it.
“I am very, very happy.”
While police spokesperson Warrant Officer Alwin Labans could not confirm that the vehicle had been found, Zondo showed The Herald paperwork from the police detailing its recovery.
According to the paperwork, the vehicle had been recovered in August 2017.
It is not clear why it took the police about a year to contact him.