Hijack syndicate smashed

2003-08-01 15:25

Cape Town - Five men, one of them a police reservist, were arrested for hijacking and car-theft after police raided premises in Grassy Park on the Cape Flats on Thursday.

Nine stolen and hijacked vehicles were recovered when police swooped on the premises, helped by Tracker, the vehicle-tracing company.

Amanda Hardy of Tracker said on Friday the arrests and recovery of the vehicles were made possible after a stolen bakkie had been tracked to a house in Grassy Park.

The bakkie, fitted with a tracing device, had been stolen from the parking lot of a major food chain in Durbanville.

Other stolen goods, including laptop computers, credit cards, drivers' licences, clothing, cameras, sound equipment worth R500 000 and an unlicenced firearm were also recovered.

Hardy said that, to date, their partnership with the police had to the recovery of 17 031 stolen and hijacked vehicles.

Nearly 4 000 car thieves and hijackers had been arrested and 176 "chop-shops" and vehicle-crime syndicates uncovered.

- SAPA