A man called 10111 to say he had been hijacked, just after he had abandoned his moms bakkie to escape a police chase.
|||Durban - There’s a new contender for the award of KwaZulu-Natal’s dumbest criminal - a man called 10111 to say he had been hijacked, just an hour after he had abandoned his mother’s bakkie to escape a police chase .
Taking him at his word, police went to fetch him and his mother and took them to the Greenwood Park police station. But he was nabbed when he was recognised by a policeman who had been chasing him only an hour earlier.
The drama started on Tuesday night when Greenwood Park policemen, Lieutenant Preggie Gounden and Sergeant Mervin Naidoo, spotted a suspicious black Fiat Strada bakkie in Glen Anil.
When police tried to stop him, the bakkie sped off and a chase ensued.
Marshall Security spokesman, Tyron Powell, said his vehicles joined the pursuit from Tibouchina Place.
It continued along Rinaldo Road, uMhlanga Rocks Drive, into Village Way, Sunningdale and through the Sunningdale Centre.
The chase came to an end when the bakkie turned into Ratoon Hill, a cul-de-sac.
Police spokesman, Colonel Vincent Mdunge, said the driver and another man jumped out and fired at police before fleeing into bushes.
Police arrested two men who had been on the back of the bakkie. An unlicensed firearm was also found, said Mdunge. The suspect - one of the two who had fled - went home where he called 10111 and reported a case of hijacking.
He told the operator that the bakkie, which belonged to his mother, had been hijacked.
A police vehicle was dispatched to his home and both mother and son were picked up and taken to the station where he was arrested.
Police said his mother had been unaware of her son’s life of crime.
On Wednesday morning Gounden and Naidoo arrested a fourth man in connection with the hijacking.
Powell said the suspects had reportedly been involved in numerous hijackings and house robberies in Durban North, Westville and other areas.
Daily News