Uber Driver Arrested for Housebreaking - Helderberg
The long arm of the law caught up with an Uber driver believed to have been involved in two separate burglary incidents reported in Gordon’s Bay last week.
The 36-year-old man from Delft was arrested at Khayelitsha Police Station while reporting a case of hijacking, after one of the targeted homeowners pursued his suspects to where the abandoned vehicle was recovered in Nomzamo.
According to a Gordon’s Bay police spokesperson, the burglaries reportedly occurred at Rhus Street and Chapman Avenue in the Mountainside residential area in the early hours of last Thursday (1 March).
Veronica Jones recalled her family home in Chapman Avenue being targeted at 04:30. She said the burglars gained entry through her son’s bedroom balcony door by means of a window that had been left open while he was asleep. She further recalled being alerted to the intruders after friends visiting from America heard a noise coming from the upstairs lounge above their bedroom and, on investigating, saw a man jump over the internal wall.
“As I peered out the window, I saw a man in the street holding our 65-inch flat-screen TV above his head and another climb the wall onto the neighbours’ property, from which an unknown bakkie pulled away,” recalled Jones.
“I immediately alerted the neighbourhood watch and Gordon’s Bay Security, while my husband quickly got dressed, grabbed his firearm and jumped in his bakkie to chase after the men.”
Jones said her husband spotted a suspicious vehicle driving around in the area, which suddenly sped off. In a chase, he allegedly followed the vehicle into Nomzamo where five men abandoned the running vehicle in a cul-de-sac and fled on foot.
“My husband waited at the car until police arrived on the scene,” Jones said. “Property believed to have been stolen was recovered from the vehicle, but unfortunately it wasn’t ours.”
Among items looted from their home was a drone worth tens of thousands of rands, a brand new Apple Mac laptop and a Canon camera belonging to the overseas couple whom they had persuaded to visit.
Jones explained that one of the visitors, a former South African citizen, moved to the States because of the country’s high crime rate.
“For this reason, we moved from Johannesburg to Gordon’s Bay two and a half years ago,” she said. “However, with crime in the area becoming a nightmare, we are left feeling very despondent.”
According to the police spokesperson, the items recovered from the vehicle, a Nissan Almera, are believed to have been stolen in the burglary at Rhus Street, and include a flat-screen TV and its remote, a duvet, clock and picnic set.
The spokesperson added it was later confirmed the car is an Uber vehicle, which the owner had tracked to its current location and arrived on the scene to investigate.
According to the owner, the Uber vehicles are tracked every hour. On Thursday morning, he tracked the vehicle at 07:25 and learnt of its location in Nomzamo. The owner said the vehicle driven by the suspect, who was employed by him for the past month and a half, was supposed to be in Cape Town.
The driver, Alex Swataki, was arrested on charges of housebreaking and theft at Khayelitsha Police Station later that day. The police spokesperson said Swataki claimed to have been hijacked on the N2 before the Baden Powell turn-off. He appeared in Strand Magistrate’s Court on Monday 5 March. The case was postponed to tomorrow (Friday 9 March).
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Source: DistrictMail