I thought I was going to die – terrified taxi passenger
Terrified people pulled from taxi
A man thought he was going to die on his birthday when he was forced out of a taxi yesterday during a botched cash-intransit heist which left one person dead in Boksburg, East Rand.
Taxi passenger Veli Nkosi said: “One moment I was reading a birthday message from my wife and the next thing those guys were attacking the money truck and ordering us to jump out of the taxi.
“I thought I was not going to see my three-month-old daughter again, and that’s when I jumped out of the taxi while it was moving,” Nkosi said.
He said more than four vehicles were used in the robbery.
“There was a vehicle that blocked the intersection at Atlas and North Rand roads. I saw two more vehicles waiting on the N12 on-ramp on Atlas Road that were blocking vehicles from getting in the way of the robbers,” he said.
Nkosi was a passenger in Philani Ngubane’s taxi.
A shaken Ngubane said he and his passengers were lucky to be alive after the shootout between the robbers and G4S security guards in front of them.
He said the robbers hauled them out of the taxi and forced them to lie on the ground while the robbery took place.
“A white BMW 1 SSeries pulled up next to my taxi and one of the passengers opened his door,” Ngubane said.
“He threw an explosive under the cash-in-transit vehicle and the explosion caused the back door of the vehicle to open.”
He said four armed robbers jumped out of their vehicle and grabbed a number of green boxes and a money bag.
“They came to our taxi and ordered us to lie on the ground. I was scared because I thought they wanted to shoot us. We were at the wrong place at the wrong time. They were already shooting at the security guards, who were also shooting back. One of the ladies in my taxi was shot in the thigh.”
Three people were injured and a suspect died during the shootout.
Police spokesman Brigadier Vishnu Naidoo said the suspects failed to take any money.
He said the dead suspect did not appear to have sustained any gunshot wounds and may have not been shot.
“There are no visible gunshot wounds. It looks like the suspect died as a result of shock or maybe even from the explosion, but he was not shot during the shootout,” Naidoo said.
Naidoo said no arrests had been made yet but investigations were ongoing.
This was the second heist to take place in the same vicinity in three months.
In March, robbers made off with an undisclosed amount of money after robbing an armoured vehicle on the N12 West, which is less than a kilometre from Atlas Road.
The South African Banking Risk Information Centre’s Kalyani Pillay said 174 heists have taken place this year.
Pillay said Gauteng alone registered 67 of the robberies.
Meanwhile, a security guard was wounded in Dobsonville, Soweto, after a failed robbery at an ATM yesterday.
Naidoo said a group of robbers ambushed the guards while they were loading money into an ATM machine.
“The robbers did not take any money, but we can confirm that a security guard in Dobsonville was wounded during a shootout,” Naidoo said.