Transit driver heroes on AK-47 attack
Transit heist heroes tell YOU how they kept calm in shock AK-47 attack
IT’S the stuff of action movies. Two guys in bullet-proof vests are in an armoured vehicle escorting a truck loaded with hundreds of cellphones on a busy highway. Suddenly, all hell breaks loose. A car tries to force them off the road and a hail of AK-47 bullets thud into their vehicle. A dashcam captures all the drama – and the guys under fire deliver a performance Tom Cruise would be proud of.
But as many South Africans know, this is no fun flick.
Behind the wheel is former police task force officer Leo Prinsloo (52). Next to him is colleague Lloyd Mtombeni (35), on only his fourth day on the job. Their mission is to make sure the transit truck safely delivers its valuable cargo – and the people attacking them want that loot badly.
The men’s cool, calm and collected demeanour captured the country’s imagination and turned them into heroes when the video of the attempted heist went viral.
“It was chaos,” Leo tells YOU. “When something like this happens, it’s not just an incident – it’s war. These guys don’t just fire one or two shots. It’s maximum violence. That robber isn’t there to warn or deter you. He’s there to kill you.”
The only way to handle a situation like this is with precision, he adds.
“It’s all about your fight-or-flight reflex. Time slows down. Your brain gives your muscle memory the time to kick in.
“It was f*****g crazy – like a tsunami. You know, many of us in this business don’t like the attention. We just want to get the job done and move on.”
Which is exactly Lloyd’s attitude. He’s a man of few words and won’t be drawn into giving a blow-by-blow account of what happened that day.
In the video, Lloyd remains calm, holding his weapon as the van rattles under the rain of bullets.
“The moment I heard that first bullet, all I could think of is that the robbers are here and now we need to take action,” he tells us.
Lloyd, who used to work as an armed response officer, sprang into co-pilot mode.
“My focus that day was to be of assistance to Leo so we could get out of there safely.”
WHEN Leo left the police force, he opened his own academy, The Edge Shooting Academy, in Centurion. He trains members of the public and security guards in weapons handling and presents courses in advanced driving skills, self-defence and first-aid training.
He also does contract and operational work every now and again. “It keeps me abreast of new equipment and vehicles and allows you to practise what you preach. There’s no point in trying to train people if you don’t have first-hand experience of being in that vehicle.”
His work with security guards has opened his eyes to the reality of the work. “The guys fight for their lives from those vehicles,” he says. “Many are shot dead. The security business is brutal.”
In his line of work he often sees how security companies expect guards to work with only the minimum amount of training.
“You can’t put the guy you send to react to an alarm in a cash-in-transit truck and expect him to go and fight the war,” he adds angrily.
And a war is what Leo and Lloyd got that day.
Leo had started working for the client, a security company, the Tuesday before and it was Lloyd’s first week at the business. Thursday 22 April started like any other: Leo had just dropped his 18- year- old daughter at school and reported for duty along with Lloyd, who is unmarried and has no kids.
Leo got behind the wheel of a Land Cruiser with bulletproof windows. Lloyd was beside him, a rifle on his lap, his finger near the trigger, armed and ready.
They set off on the N4 highway, the courier truck with the cellphones about 150m in front of them.
“If we have space, we fall back, sometimes we get closer,” Leo says. “The tactic is to be close enough to react but not too close to draw unnecessary attention.”
At 10.35am, the attackers struck. “They were in two vehicles – a white bakkie and an Audi,” he recalls.
“You try to be as observant as possible. If you’re not, you’ll get caught with your pants down. From there, all you can do is enact your plans and training. We try to teach our students: observe, orientate, decide – then act.”
The would-be robbers opened fire, lead thudding into the windows. Because the glass is bulletproof, they couldn’t shoot back. “Not without opening doors,” Leo says. “I’d warned Lloyd beforehand if something happened, I’d have to use the vehicle as a weapon.”
Altogether 13 bullets hit their vehicle. “But I wasn’t counting,” Leo says.
He tried keeping the Audi behind his vehicle but the bakkie had already forced the courier off the road. Three men wielding AK-47s jumped out and the terrified couriers ran away.
Leo charged the Land Cruiser towards the bakkie and knocked it but the driver got away. In the meantime, he was looking for the Audi. “I wasn’t letting him get away that easily.”
That’s when Leo uttered his now infamous, “Come here, you c***!”
“You’re not thinking of what you’re saying in the moment,” he says a little sheepishly. “You’re not thinking the [dashcam] video might get out.”
Lloyd took some heat on the internet for not reacting more but Leo won’t hear a word against him. “There’s was nothing more Lloyd could do. He tried calling his managers but there were signal jammers. What else could he do?”
The criticism of his colleague was unacceptable, he adds. “Put your soda down. Put your popcorn down. Get out from behind your screen, stop watching action movies and get in a car with us and see what you’re made of.”
He and Lloyd behaved instinctively and their training kicked in. “Your first reaction is instinct and that action is cemented through experience, training, simulations, scenarios. Because when shots are fired, it’s too late to be thinking.”
IT WAS a huge relief when everything was over and they were unscathed. Between the scene where the courier vehicle had been forced off the road and the chase after the Audi, the robbers had escaped. “Lloyd was a little shell-shocked, but he was okay,” Leo says. “He was great.”
The only thing that annoys Leo is that the robbers got away.
“It bothered me that those guys are free to commit another robbery and that I’d lost the chance to possibly save the next security guard’s life. That gives me sleepless nights. Not that I was shot at – that’s the least of my worries.”
As for Lloyd, the harrowing experience has made him more determined than ever to fight crime. “I love my job,” he says. “Any day and at any time criminals can strike. There’s always someone who wants to do something bad.”
‘WHEN SOMETHING LIKE THIS HAPPENS, IT’S NOT JUST AN INCIDENT – IT’S WAR’