Airport staff could have hand in attacks
Lee Rondganger
July 27 2007 at 04:53AM
Police believe several leaks at OR Tambo International Airport could be spawning the spate of attacks on tourists.
A senior police officer has told The Star that officers are investigating the possibility that the gang who recently ambushed South Africa's ambassador to the United Nations, Dumisani Kumalo, and several other tourists may be colluding with customs officials at the declaration counter.
"The customs officials know exactly what the tourists have on them, and how much money they are bringing into the country, because all this information needs to be declared. These officials would also have details as to where the tourists will be staying, because these details are given to them.
"From the information we have, the gang have advanced information on the people they plan to rob because they know where they are coming from and to what addresses they were going to," the policeman said.
'The gang have advanced information'
He said the gang selected their victims carefully and targeted only people bringing in expensive electronic equipment and large amounts of money. He said that since the beginning of the year, there had been at least one attack every week.
Most of the victims, the officer said, are West African, with some from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola.
On Tuesday, Bishop Lamba Lamba along with a colleague, Pastor Oscar Wakandwa, of the Come and See Church in the DRC, became the latest statistics in the airport-linked attacks.
The two were ambushed by a gang of at least five men outside Wakandwa's Jeppestown home on Thursday, after he had picked up Lamba from the airport.
Lamba, travelling from the Philippines en route to the DRC, was supposed be in the country for five days. As Wakandwa was closing the gate, three men ambushed the pair and forced them into the house.
'We were told to lie on the ground'
"We were told to lie on the ground. The men started going through our things.
"There were three of them in the house and the one with the gun was on the phone communicating with people outside the house," Wakandwa said.
The robbers stole the bishop's passport, money, laptop computer, video camera, digital camera, a PlayStation console and a host of other electronic goods, he said.
The attack on the clergymen came just days after Kumalo was ambushed, along with guests, at his son Mandla's home in Greenside on returning home from the airport.
The police source said this was a typical method used by the gang, who attacked their victims as they reached their home gates or their hotel.
Among the other possibilities investigators were looking at were scouts who positioned themselves at the waiting area of international arrivals.
The policeman said investigators had made several breakthroughs and now had descriptions of the gang and the vehicles they use.
Police spokesperson Superintendent Eugene Opperman would only say that investigators were profiling the gang.
