Driver who foiled hit

HEIST: CASH-IN-TRANSIT ESCORT GOES VIRAL AFTER BRAVE DISPLAY

‘South Africa has become a haven for all kinds of gangs. Sadly, there is about a 40% to 50% success rate.’

While the country applauded cashin-transit escort driver Leo Prinsloo for evading a series of live bullets while foiling an attempted heist, he felt he was just doing his job, which sees about six to seven incidents per week.

The gutsy Prinsloo went internationally viral this week in a leaked video showing the tough guy dodging a string of bullets which hit his armoured Toyota

Land Cruiser on the N4 in Pretoria.

In the process, Prinsloo relentlessly tried to drive into the robbers, successfully ramming one of the vehicles off the road. He and his colleague, Lloyd Mtombeni, were escorting a vehicle carrying cellphones when they were shot at more than 30 times.

As Prinsloo trended on social media for his “badass” stunt, he felt the attention was unnecessary as he was just doing his job, said Deon Coetzee, managing director of Fortis Pro-Active Defence Solutions, where Prinsloo works.

Such attacks happened at least six or seven times per week, with four attacks recorded on the same day as Prinsloo, said Coetzee.

“South Africa has become a haven for all kinds of gangs. We have all sorts of things… Sadly, there is about a 40% to 50% success rate of stopping these things,” he said.

Prinsloo and his family were placed under security guard as he was receiving death threats, Coetzee said.

“We are keeping everything serious but there is organised crime involved in this so… any gang who can, at this stage, take out Leo would score ‘street cred’ with all other gangs. The video should never have been leaked in the beginning,” said Coetzee.

While Prinsloo was doing well, he did not like the attention as he felt he was doing his job.

“His biggest gripe is ‘I was just doing what all these guys are doing daily but they want to make a hype about me’,” Coetzee said.

It was only his fourth day on the job when Mtombeni was caught in the crossfire while sitting seemingly calm on the passenger seat during the chase.

Despite being criticised by the public for freezing up, Coetzee said Mtombeni “actually did very good”.

“He is doing fine. It was only on the job at this specific company for four days when this happened and he was in training and then they got hit. He actually did very good,” said Coetzee

After Prinsloo instructed Mtombeni to get a “proper gun” instead of the handgun he had initially picked up, Mtombeni was then told to “call Robbie, call Josh, and find out where they are”.

Josh and Robbie were also escorting a vehicle around the vicinity at the time, Coetzee said.

“That is why he was thinking of calling them for backup. The company which owns the vans has a helicopter which is in Johannesburg but to call the helicopter would take much longer to get the crew in the area. His first reaction was to call Josh and Robbie.”

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