Three males from Virginia in the Free State were arrested in the early hours of Wednesday, 20 May 2015 after they were caught with copper wire weighing 50 kg with a street value of R 100 000, 00 just outside Excelsior.
At 19:00 in the evening when WO Mojalefa Litabe a shift commander at Excelsior Police Station was relaxing at his home. He received a call from a source regarding three suspects that a planning to damage an electrical transformer and cut it open and remove the wire that is inside the transformer.
WO Litabe drove to the police station with his own private car and reported on duty. He called other members that were also off duty for back-up and they responded immediately. The six members as well as WO Litabe went to the given spot and did their observation from 20:00 in the cold winter night. The reliable source informed WO Litabe that the driver of the bakkie that was going to be used was at Mahlatswetsa and waiting for the other two suspects that were allegedly cutting the copper.
The seven members did their observation up until 03:00 when they spotted the given description of the Isuzu bakkie. They kept on observing the bakkie on Thaba Nchu gravel road and noticed two African males who joined the driver on the bakkie and started loading suspected stolen property on the bakkie.
The members followed the bakkie and stopped it. Upon searching it the Police found copper wire and saws at the back of the bakkie. Police arrested the three suspects for possession of suspected stolen property and they are expected to appear before Excelsior Magistrates’ Court on Friday, 22 May 2015.
One of the arrested suspects is a former employee of an electricity supplier and it is suspected that he used his skills to cut the transformer. Excelsior Police Station Detectives are looking at the possibility of linking these arrested suspects with other reported cases of copper.
Colonel Abram Raliopane, the Ladybrand Cluster Commander applauded the seven members who went beyond their call of duty during their rest days and they managed to arrest the three suspects aged between 37 and 57 and confiscated the Isuzu bakkie valued at R 40 000,00.
