By Botho Molosankwe 
8m ago
Johannesburg – Eight men from Mozambique and Zimbabwe have been arrested after they were found in possession of a hijacked truck and stolen trailer.
The men, who are motor mechanics and operate from a plot in Ekurhuleni, were arrested after they failed to state how the vehicles came into their possession.
Spokesperson for the Ekurhuleni Metro Police Department’s Kobeli Mokheseng said the men were arrested on Thursday morning during a crime prevention operation.
Mokheseng said they were in Putfontein when concerned members of the community expressed their concerns about “shady characters with suspicious motor-vehicles” frequenting one of the nearby plots in awkward hours of the morning.
He said officers promptly responded and went to that plot.
There they found that the plot was an auto repair shop and found eight men working there.
He said there were also 15 vehicles that were at the plot and their investigations revealed that two of them had been reported as hijacked and stolen.
A white Mercedes Benz truck tractor was hijacked in Delmas at the beginning of the year while the trailer, he said, was stolen in Olifantsfontein.
Mokheseng said the trailer was hooked to another vehicle at the time.
He said thieves unhooked it from that vehicle, hooked it onto another one and drove away with it.
Mokheseng said the men refused to say how the stolen vehicles came to be in their possession.
“The apprehended eight Zimbabwe and Mozambique nationals facing charges of ‘possession of robbed/hijacked motor vehicles’ are between the ages of 15 and 47.
“They were marched to Putfontein police station and the SAPS has put their immigration status, under the microscope.
“The detained suspects, are expected to appear in the Benoni Magistrate’s Court soon,” he said.
IOL
Credit IOL