Taxi driver robbed, beaten, car torched
Ex-military man attacked by two armed men after responding to fake call by a woman in Cambridge
AFORMER army sniper turned taxi driver owes his life to his military fighting skills after he was attacked by two armed hijackers inside his taxi at the weekend.
After an exchange of blows, the thugs left him on the roadside, fled with his money and later torched his taxi.
Wade Grunewald, 52, a former soldier in the former SADF’s 4th South African Infantry Battalion in Middleburg, was tricked into ferrying the gunmen after a woman using a “sexy” voice called the company and asked to be fetched from near the Cambridge Spar at 1.30am yesterday.
Grunewald was dispatched to pick up the “client” by his brother Dean Grunewald, who is the company’s night manager.
Dean said he suspected nothing because the woman had a familiar voice.
“She slowly said, ‘Hey Rocco’s I’m in Cambridge. Come pick me up and take me to Morningside in Amalinda’.
“I recognised the voice. I’ve been told by my drivers that it is a smallsized girl who would jump over the fence of her parent’s home and call us to take her to her boyfriend around that time,” said Dean.
But instead of a woman at the destination as arranged, Wade was greeted by two men who asked “nicely” to be taken to Amalinda.
“I called my brother to ask where the lady was and he told me she wasn’t picking up [her phone] so I left with the two dudes,” he said.
Speaking to the Dispatch late yesterday, an injured Wade said the two
thugs were about 1.8 and 1.72m tall. “They stuck a gun behind my ear at a stop sign near the Bush Bucks stadium in Amalinda and made me drive near the Amalinda Nursery, where they searched the car and my body for money.
“They kept shouting ‘Where is the money! Where is the money?’”
Grunewald said one man remained in the car to search for the money, while the other got out with him and made him stand at the side of the road while searching his body.
Grunewald said that was when he lost his temper.
“I punched him in the face and his gun was lost somewhere there and we exchanged more blows and rolled all over the ground and the tar.”
Grunewald said the other suspect then put a gun to his head.
Grunewald said the attacker said: “Hey wena mlungu yeka lento uyenzayo – or we will kill you.” [Hey white man stop what you are doing or else we will kill you.”]
He said the brawl seemed to take the fight out of the pair and they then abandoned him, fleeing in his Nissan Sentra with his cellphone and the R600 from his wallet.
The taxi was found torched near Amalinda township eight hours later.
Grunewald said he had earlier hidden his wallet in his pants at the back but it was spotted by one of the men.
“I got a ride with a woman who was driving past and she dropped me at a garage and I called my brother.”
Grunewald said he had bruises on his left side including his face.
The owner of Rocco’s taxis, Rocco van Vuuren, 53, said this was the second hijacking and the third torching of his taxis in 14 years.
“Two of my taxis were torched eight years ago.
“It is very difficult to replace a car for me because I am alone in this business,” Van Vuuren said.
Police spokesman Captain Nkosikho Mzuku said the Cambridge police were investigating the case.
“They were notified about a vehicle found burnt in Amalinda Forest this morning. This was after a report of a vehicle that was hijacked in Amalinda in the early hours.” —