Bogus cops rob businessmen
2007-10-17 12:06
Nelspruit - Two businessmen were robbed by bogus cops while on their way to Johannesburg to buy stock.
Zerehun Snafkew, 37, of Ethiopia and his partner Abdullah Omar, 35, of Somalia have a clothing shop in Bushbuckridge and were robbed of R42 000 cash on the Old Pretoria Road in Nelspruit, Mpumalanga, at 03:30 on Sunday morning.
"We had just turned onto the Old Pretoria Road when two men in a car with a flashing green light overtook us. They fired a shot into the air and told us to pull over into the yellow line because they were police," said Snafkew on Tuesday.
He said that he and Omar were told to get out their bakkie and were forced to lie on the ground while the suspects searched their pockets and the car.
The suspects found R42 000 and then got back into their own car and left.
'Taking advantage of foreigners'
Snafkew's wife, Faith Snafkew said that two months ago, another car had followed her husband from the Old Pretoria Road to the Machado toll plaza on the N4 highway before turning around.
"People are taking advantage of foreigners because they know that they always carry cash," she said.
She said a relative was robbed of R100 000 in a similar manner but had never reported the case to the police.
When her husband went to report the robbery on Sunday, he found another foreigner at the Nelspruit police station who had been robbed of R19 000 in the same area that morning.
"His eyes and body were bruised because the bogus cops had beaten him because they felt he had too little money on him," said Snafkew.
Mpumalanga police spokesperson Superintendent Abie Khoabane confirmed that police were investigating the attack on Snafkew and Omar.
"We are going to deploy police to patrol the area and hopefully arrest the suspects," he said.
He advised business people not to travel with large amounts of cash but to keep their money safely in a bank account.