Spoornet depot robbery ends in gunfight

[Gabor Kovacs]

Shocking, and a little too close to home . . . . . .
this report from IOLs' News website.

Spoornet depot robbery ends in gunfight.
Graeme Hosken
May 18 2009 at 08:14AM

Pretoria police were involved in a shootout with a gang of heavily armed robbers who attacked a city container depot over the weekend.

The gunfight occurred while police from the Pretoria Flying Squad and Villeria, Moot and Wonderboompoort police stations were searching the Spoornet depot for the gang of rifle-carrying robbers early on Saturday.

The gang of six, who are believed to have been armed with AK-47s and other semi-automatic assault rifles, attacked the Wonderboompoort railway container depot and tied up nine guards in three different containers before they robbed them of cellphones, money, a two-way radio and a car radio.

Police are believed to have been alerted to the robbery when the guard's supervisor arrived at the Transpark railway container depot at the intersection of Paul Kruger Street and Mansfield Avenue and spotted the gunmen who opened fire on him.

Police searching the depot recovered one of the guard's 1400 Nissan bakkie which the robbers are thought to have tried to escape in.

A policeman said that while searching the area around the bakkie the robbers, who were hiding in dense bushes, opened fire on them.

"We returned fire, but none of the suspects, who were well hidden in the bushes, were shot," he said, adding that the shootout had lasted for nearly 10 minutes.

Police spokeswoman, Constable Patricia Simelane, confirmed the robbery and said that no arrests had been made.

Meanwhile, a gang of robbers blew up a Pretoria automated teller machine and escaped with an undisclosed amount of money in an attack early yesterday.

The attack on the Standard Bank ATM near Hercules train station occurred at 2am when a gang of between six and eight men packed explosives around the banking machine.

The explosion, according to police, ripped the ATM apart and damaged the safe.

[Dylan Knott]

WTF!!!

[John Ashworth]

Interesting how many news media don't seem to be aware that Spoornet doesn't exist and hasn't done for some time now.

[Stefan Andrzejewski]

Sounds like the Wild West up there. Are your Loco's and stock safe?