Crime in the areas surrounding Laudium continues to be a problem, with many local residents who have businesses in the Sunderland Ridge industrial area, also affected by the high crime in that area.
This follows the Laudium Sun receiving yet another report of a crime in Sunderland Ridge, for crime stats purposes, so that others can be informed of the crime happenings in their area. This time the business premises of A & F Agencies on Van Tonder Street was broken into, despite the firm having security guards at the premises. The break-in which was discovered this past Monday morning (Dec 9) is believed to have taken place sometime during the weekend, after the owners had safely locked up the premises the previous Friday afternoon. The gang of thieves managed to get into the place and leave with a number of valuables without being detected by the many private security patrollers in the area. Several items, such as computers, cameras and clothes were stolen.
Ashraf Janoo (68) the owner of A & F Agencies, told the Laudium Sun, “We have security guards, guarding the premises on a 24 hour basis, which includes working the whole weekend, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. These criminals stole a lot of items including a number of computers, televisions, clothes and our video recorder of the CCTV cameras, where some of the footage from our business premises were stored. We also sell medical supplies to doctors and paramedics and a lot of those goods were also stolen. This theft must have seen many thieves involved to walk through come to work. Also, it seems that the thieves were informed as to where the video recorder and camera were hidden which is why they even stole the CCTV cameras and the recorder. Fortunately the thieves did not know about the digital video recorder which we use as a back-up. We have given the recording of it to a specialist to analyze it so that we can identify the culprits who stole all the stuff from our business premises. We hope that the footage will also show whether any of the security guards were at the premises at the time, working with the criminals.” Ashraf added, “We have also hired a specialist to do a polygraph test and to interview all our security guards, to find out if one of them was involved with this break-in. Our business is not fully operating now because of the burglary, as these criminals stole a lot of stuff that we use to do business with. We are determined to find out who these criminals are and get them arrested. That is why we are even offering a reward to anyone who comes forward with information that leads to the arrest of these thieves. We have information that some of the thieves involved are living in the neighboring informal settlement called Spruit, which is adjacent to Sunderland Ridge. That place is just growing and growing with even the police unable to stop the people from coming into the area and putting up shacks there.”
*Attempts to get hold of Erasmia CPF Chairperson, Pritesh Bhana, for comment were unsuccessful.