Date : 10 April 2008
Three Automatic Teller Machines (ATM) were bombed in the Madibeng area since last Friday and the latest incident at a shopping centre in Broederstroom on Tuesday morning left service station staff and security officials shocked after robbers fired shots to keep the officials from stopping them.
ATMs were blown up at two Broederstroom shopping centres and at a filling station on Silkaatsnek. During two of the incidents the robbers also held up the service station staff and fled with cigarettes and cash. The first bombing occurred at the Broederstroom shopping centre on Friday morning where a group of between four and five men entered the shopping centre in a small sedan around midnight. The explosives they used destroyed the ATM and caused damage to at least two buildings at the centre. They fled with un undisclosed amount of money. The same ATM was bombed in September last year when a group of five men bombed the ATM and damaged it to such an extent that it was flung from the wall and into the parking lot. When Kormorant arrived on the scene on Friday morning investigators from ABSA and members of the SAPS Explosives Unit were studying video surveillance material of the incident. The surveillance footage was taken by the SAPS members for further study. A group of approxi-mately eight robbers arrived at the service station on Silkaats-nek at around 02:50 on Tuesday morning in five BMWs and a Toyota and pointed pistols and rifles at the petrol attendants. Insp. Brian Dlamini, spokesperson for Brits police, said that some of the robbers then forced the attendants into the store where they held them at gunpoint and demanded cash and cigarettes while the rest of the group went to the ATM, located at the service station. “The robbers inside the store took cigarettes and cash valued at R5 000. An explosion followed and the robbers managed to get money from the machine, although the amount of money has not been disclosed,” Insp. Dlamini said. According to him the group of robbers all wore balaklavas and gloves and spoke English and Zulu. The group was described as being of mixed race and between the ages of 20 and 50 years. The BMWs used for the robbery were black, maroon and silver in colour. Soon after this the Hartbeespoort police were called to the Mountain Lake shopping centre in Broederstroom where shots had been fired during the bombing of an ATM and the robbery of the 24 hour store at the service station. Charges of armed robbery and malicious damage to property are being investigated. According to a spokesperson for the Hartbeespoort police the group of between six and seven men arrived at the centre just after 03:00 on Tuesday morning in a new BMW and Audi and stopped the vehicles close to the ATM in one corner of the centre. There was a security guard close to the ATM at that stage and the robbers overpowered him and held him down.“Another one of the robbers detached himself from the group and went to the service station where he held up the store and took cigarettes and cigars valued at approximately R20 000. While he was at the store the rest of the robbers used explosives to bomb the ATM,” the spokesperson said. According to the spokesperson the ATM was completely destroyed and the steel-enforced door of the room in which it was housed blown right off its hinges. Officials from a security company in the area were attending to an alarm close to the centre and heard the explosion. The spokesperson said that guards rushed to the centre and drove up to where the two vehicles were parked. “As soon as the security vehicle came to a standstill, they started shooting at them. The security officials drove out of the centre, the vehicle’s one tyre and the side of the vehicle were hit. As they drove further away another vehicle was standing next to the road and the occupants of this third vehicle also shot at them,” the spokesperson said. The robbers then took the money and fled the scene. No-one was injured in the incident but the events left the security officials and the service station staff shocked. Members of the Brits and Pretoria Explosives Units were on the scene later on Tuesday morning to investigate. Charges of attempted murder, armed robbery and a contravention of the Explosives Act are being investigated.
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