'Cops' nab what robbers leave behind
2010-09-29 09:16
Seugnet Esterhuyse, Beeld
Pretoria - A week after being robbed, the Bruwer family of Highveld, Centurion, could only watch as robbers dressed in police uniforms took what valuable items remained.
André Bruwer, 53, suspects the robbers returned to get access to a second safe.
The robbers also wanted to know where the security cameras were. This second safe and the security cameras were mentioned in his conversation with the police who took his statement after the earlier robbery.
A TV, sound system, cellphone, laptop and safe were stolen during that robbery. Bruwer and his wife, Laurenza, 51, had failed to activate the alarm that day.
Statement
Bruwer told on Tuesday how he had made a statement at the Lyttleton police station and told an official there that the robbers had "left various valuable items behind, including another safe".
He also mentioned that they would be installing security cameras.
Mrs Bruwer and her daughter, Luandri, 20, were alone at home on Sunday when two men in police uniforms knocked on the front door. One of them told Mrs Bruwer that they were investigating the robbery and that they had arrested all three suspects.
They wanted more information.
She invited them in. One of them then held a pistol to her head.
Three more armed men, also in police uniforms, entered the house after them.
One of the robbers asked her for the second safe's code. He also asked where the security camera footage was kept.
Looking for specific things
The man said they would rape her and her daughter until she gave the code. She said only her husband had the code.
The robbers tied up her and her daughter's hands and demanded jewellery.
"This time they were looking for specific things. To me it's just too much of a coincidence that things mentioned only to the police were precisely the things they were looking for," she said on Tuesday.
The men fled with the other safe, jewellery and money.
This robbery was also reported to the Lyttleton police.