The arrest of a couple at Port Elizabeth airport with R300 000 worth of stolen IT material led Grahamstown police to stashes of similar stolen goods in the town.
The arrest of a couple at Port Elizabeth airport with R300 000 worth of stolen IT material led Grahamstown police to stashes of similar stolen goods in the town.
The couple were convicted after pleading guilty to 24 counts of possession of suspected stolen property in the Grahamstown Regional court this week.
Grahamstown police spokesperson Captain Mali Govender said two foreign nationals were arrested in June last year after Port Elizabeth police were alerted by baggage handlers that several suitcases containing laptops and other digital equipment were detected passing through airport scanners.
After follow-up investigations the police linked the stolen items to a break-in that happened at the home of a prominent Grahamstown resident a week before the couple's arrest.
The home of NG Kerk minister Strauss de Jager was broken into and only laptops appeared to have been stolen.
De Jager had told the police that according to their burglar alarm records, the robbers had cleared the house very quickly and disappeared before the security company arrived.
In a statement released at the time Govender said, "It later emerged that seven out of 10 bags belonging to the [couple]were packed with electronic equipment including 32 laptops, 11 cellphones, cameras, a video camera, a DVD player and computer hard drives. All of these have an estimated value of at least R300 000."
This week 32-year-old Diana Yasafo and 27-year-old Peter Mensah were given the option to pay a R30 000 fine or spend three years in prison, of which R20 000 or two years imprisonment was suspended for five years.
Govender said as a result of these arrests an intense investigation by Grahamstown detectives and crime intelligence officers had been initiated.
"Over several months numerous premises were identified in Grahamstown," she said.
