OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Thursday 7.30pm.
A MEMBER of the group responsible for the Bronkhorstspruit cash-in-transit heist in July last year was given R50000 of the spoils, even though he did not take part in the robbery itself, the Pretoria High Court heard on Thursday.
Jerry Mashigo, who has turned state witness, said that while the group was in position on the Witbank highway waiting for the SBV security van which they expected to come by, he was injured by a passing car and returned to the farm near Delmas which was the robbers’ base.
Mashigo was one of four men detailed to spread the spiked chain that would puncture the cash van’s tyres, causing it to stop. He did not know where the idea to use a chain had come from and had found the chain already loaded onto a bakkie when he arrived at the farm before the first attempt at the heist, he told the court.
“We knew the people in the cash van would be armed. If they fired shots, we would shoot back. There were firearms there. They had it in their possession — AK47s, R4 rifles and 9mm pistols. A lot of the people were armed. I don’t know how many… All of us had weapons,” he said.
The heist did not take place that night because the cash van failed to appear. When Mashigo, back at the farm and slightly injured, phoned Dennis Nqobezi, one of the gang, the next day to hear if they would try again, he was told he had to stay behind as a result of the accident.
“On Thursday, I heard a news report that SBV’s vehicle had been robbed at Bronkhorstspruit. Later that night Thabo [Stimela] and his wife came to my house. He gave me R50000 in a gym bag. I knew it was the money from the heist. I put it in a drawer,” Mashigo said.
Stimela and Nquobezi are two of the 15 accused now on trial for the heist, which netted R17.4-million. The trial continues.