A local resident is furious after falling victim to crime, within a short space of time, living in Laudium. The victim, who hails originally from Limpopo and has been living in Laudium for only about a year, said he cannot believe that thieves could be so brazen to force open his gate and steal a trailer from his yard, by hooking it onto their vehicle, without neighbors hearing anything, despite houses in the area all closely built.
The theft incident which took place last Friday (Feb 25), in the early part of the morning at around 3am, which is normally a quiet time, strangely did not even draw the attention of the local police, who are stationed not very far from the crime scene.
Owner of the trailer, Chris Rugodho of Brown Street, Laudium, told the Laudium Sun, “I still cannot understand how these thieves managed to get away with my trailer, without anyone hearing a thing. Even my wife and I did not hear anything, despite being light sleepers. That trailer was heavy and would have made some noise, whilst the thieves were pushing it towards their vehicle. When my wife and I woke up in the morning at around 6am, we still did not notice anything strange. I got up as normal, had my bath and breakfast and got ready for work as usual. Once we were both ready, I went out first to so long start my car, so that the engine could get hot. That is the first time I noticed something strange. I was surprised to find our front gate was open and when I looked around I saw that the yard was looking empty and then only I realized that my trailer was missing. I started screaming for my wife telling her to quickly come out and see that our trailer was gone. I then asked my wife to call the police and when they came they asked us a few questions. I then remembered that we have CCTV cameras and when we checked the footage, we saw that at around 3am in the morning, two Indian guys and one colored guy arrived in a Silver Isuzu bakkie, which is well known in the Laudium area. Two of these guys jumped over my gate and were busy at the gate motor and it seemed like they were using something like a gadget to open the remote motor gate. They then could be seen coming to my front door and burning something, presumably so we would fall into a deep sleep. They then opened the front gate, reversed their bakkie into my yard, hooked my trailer onto their Isuzu and drove off. There were no number plates on the bakkie. We are even paying for private security, but still this incident happened. At that quiet time of the night, even the police, who are stationed not too far away, did not hear anything. I did not realize that crime is so high in Laudium. This is unacceptable. I hope that the police catch the criminals involved, as the police have seen the CCTV footage and now have a good lead as to who these guys are.”
Sergeant Chokoe of the Laudium police confirmed that a case had been opened and that police are investigating the matter.
