A 42-year-old constable and his 43-year-old accomplice, who pretended to be a police captain when he falsely claimed he had successfully thwarted a hit on two attorneys from whom the pair later demanded a “reward”, have been arrested the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks) in Mpumalanga said on Monday.
Captain Dineo Lucy Sekgotodi said between November last year and January the constable’s partner in crime – the fake police captain – approached two Attorneys and told them that there were people who wanted to kill them.
The constable and the fake police captain claimed a case was opened at Tonga Police Station. For a while the pair “updated” the two attorneys of the progress on the investigation.
Sekgotodi said the suspects subsequently told the attorneys that two suspected hitmen, who planed to kill them, had been arrested.
The attorney’s were then told the that “the Captain” would like to have “Isibongo” (a reward) for “the good job he had done in saving their lives”.
When the so-called captain pressed then for the reward, the attorneys reported the matter to the police station, where they were told no one had been arrested for trying to kill them.
“The matter was escalated to the Hawks and investigation ensued. An undercover operation was conducted and the two suspects and the victims arranged a meeting in which the ‘isibongo’ money was to be paid. The suspects arrived as arranged and they were given R16,000 which was received by the so-called captain,” said Sekgotodi.
“When the Hawks pounced on the suspects the ‘captain’ was found with the cash in his pockets”.
Further investigations revealed that the fake captain was in fact a constable, stationed at Tonga Police Station.
The pair, arrested on Friday, were expected tp appear before the Nelspruit Magistrate’s Court on Monday.
– African News Agency (ANA
