Two men pretending to be jewellery traders entered a High Street money-lending business and held staff at gunpoint before fleeing with an undisclosed amount of cash Thursday morning.
Two men pretending to be jewellery traders entered a High Street money-lending business and held staff at gunpoint before fleeing with an undisclosed amount of cash Thursday morning.
When the robbers entered Kwik Cash Loans and Financial Services next to CNA at about 8am, two female staff members, assistant manager Zinziswa Mathondolo and consultant Bukiwe Pongolo had just opened up. They were cleaning their offices in anticipation of their employers who were expected to arrive later in the day.
The two women did not question the two men who entered the office to show them some watches and chains for sale. When they showed no interest in buying anything, one of the two men said he had more merchandise in his backpack but then pulled out a gun.
He rushed towards Mathondolo and put the gun to her head and shouted “Where are the safe keys, where is the safe?” Mathondolo started trembling and crying and the man told her aggressively to keep quiet. “Please bhuti, don’t kill me I’m pregnant,” she pleaded with him. Mathondolo is six months pregnant.
She said the men used cable ties to tie their hands together. One of the men forced Mathondolo to sit in a chair but moved her away when he realised she was too close to the window. “He tried to tie me to the chair but the cable was too short,” she said.
The other man forced Pongolo to open the safe which contained a cash box full of coins and a bag full of notes, which they stashed in the backpack. They had apparently planned to lock the women in the toilet but could not find the keys.
Still visibly shaken, the women told Grocott’s Mail that after hearing a big bang as the door closed, they believed that the robbers did not want them to see how they escaped. Grocott’s learnt that the men fled in a getaway car that had been parked nearby.
“That’s when we came out and pressed the panic button and phoned the police,” said Mathondolo. She said it was her first robbery experience since she joined Kwik Cash in 2006.
SAPS spokesperson Captain Pumla Yobile confirmed the robbery. When Grocott’s Mail arrived at the scene, police were still investigating. Police apparently detained two men but the women confirmed they were not the robbers.
Yobile said that no suspects had been arrested but that the robbers were suspected to be foreigners as they could barely speak English or Xhosa. They have been described as being very dark in complexion; one of them was dressed in black while the other wore a blue and white t-shirt. The robbery had brought the business to a standstill. An onlooker said he was surprised that there were still businesesses that keep large amounts of money on the premises.
