Police arrested seven men after a traffic officer was shot and wounded following a cash-in-transit heist on the M3 near Ottery in Cape Town on Tuesday.
Police also recovered two cash bags containing
R1,8-million and a variety of weapons including an AK47, an R5 and two 9mm pistols.
Police representative Captain Billy Jones said a gang of about 10 men travelling in three vehicles — a Toyota bakkie, an Opel Astra and a Ford Bantam bakkie — forced a Standard Bank cash transit security vehicle off the M3 around 9.15am.
The men ordered the four security guards to hand over the cash bags at gunpoint.
Two of the guards were hit on the head with rifle butts as the attackers grabbed the cash containers.
The gang sped off in the Bantam bakkie and the Opel Astra and opened fire on traffic officer James Mayston who was on his way to an unrelated accident on the M3.
Police with the assistance of a helicopter caught the seven robbers on the Old Strandfontein Road in Ottery.
Cape Town city council representative Peter Sorrell said Mayston (37) of the South Peninsula Administration traffic department, was taken to the Wynberg Medi Clinic where doctors operated on his right arm.
A search was being conducted for the other robbers who were believed to have escaped. – Sapa