Cable thieves stopped in their tracks

Cable theft remains an ongoing problem, crippling many sectors of our economy.

On Monday 29 August, close to midnight, the Fidelity ADT monitoring centre received an alert from the Fidelity team located near the substation on Rondebult Road, just before the Barry Marais intersection.

The officer on duty noticed an odd buzzing sound coming from the substation. He called for backup as cable syndicates can be notoriously dangerous. Once the second vehicle was closer, the officers started patrolling the railway line and found a portion of the cables had indeed been cut. Charnel Hattingh Group Head of Marketing & Communications at Fidelity ADT says the officers then commenced a search of the area for the missing cables and suspects. They managed to find a pile of stolen copper cables, including the bolt cutters used to cut the cable, about 20m from the pile of cables. While the teams were checking all the stolen material, one of the officers noticed a man standing on the bridge who appeared to be monitoring the situation.

Once the suspect realised he had been spotted he immediately fled the scene but the officers were able to apprehend another suspect who was caught hiding in the grass. The suspect was handed over to the arresting officer Joseph Tshabalala.

Fortunately, a large portion of the copper cables and the bolt cutters were found in a bushy area about 50m from the railway line. “It appears this was being used as a storage area for collection by the suspects at a later stage.”

Hattingh confirmed that the theft had impacted approximately 200m - 300m of cable. Much of it had been cut into smaller sections to enable it to be easily transported.The investigation is ongoing.