Cash-in-transit ‘robbers’ shoot each other during heist

A vigilant Cape Town nurse helped police nab alleged cash-in-transit robbers after a “suspicious” patient was admitted to a hospital with a gun wound.

Police pounced while a doctor was attending to the patient at a Khayelitsha facility on Wednesday. The investigation linked the suspect to a  heist in Grabouw earlier that day.

Hawks spokesperson Zinzi Hani said the suspect and two others allegedly committed several crimes after robbing a security guard of an undisclosed amount of money.

Hani said Fidelity Cash Solutions crew members had just collected money from Tekkie Town. She said a security officer was about to deposit the money at Nedbank when he was attacked.

“But before he could enter the bank, he was approached by three suspects who assaulted him with a firearm on his head and in the process he was forced down,” said Hani.

“He was robbed of ... one bag of money containing an undisclosed amount of cash.

“During that squabble, some shots were fired and one of the robbers was shot on his right leg. The robbers fled in different directions and the injured one ran towards the taxi rank.

“The remaining two, while running away from the scene, attempted to hijack a white Toyota Conquest, but the driver resisted and fired three shots at them. They ran towards a taxi rank where they successfully hijacked a black VW Chico and the injured were collected along the way as they fled.”

Hani said the suspects drove towards Strand where the Golf was set alight.

“They then entered into another getaway vehicle, a bronze Toyota Corolla and drove to Khayelitsha hospital to drop off the injured robber,” said Hani.

“While the injured man was being attended to by the doctor, one of the nurses noticed a policeman from Harare police station and she notified him of the patient who appeared suspicious with a gun wound. The police officer called for backup. While waiting for backup, he saw a BMW and the driver was trying to collect the injured person from the medical room. The BMW driver was arrested with the injured suspect.”

Hani said the investigation “revealed that the injured robber was shot by his fellow robbers during the altercation with the crew”.

“On further preliminary investigation, the driver of the bronze Toyota Corolla was also arrested and the vehicle was confiscated and impounded for further investigation. During the interview the driver of the BMW was released as he could not be linked with the crime scene,” said Hani.

Masixole Cekiso, 34, and Melikhaya Mangoloti, 38, appeared in the Grabouw magistrate’s court on Thursday. They were slapped with a slew of charges including cash-in-transit robbery, robbery with aggravating circumstances, attempted murder, attempted car-hijacking and car-hijacking. The matter was postponed to August 10 for a formal bail application.

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