Four police officers have been arrested over a burglary from the serious and violent crime unit’s safe in Benoni on the East Rand, Beeld reported on Wednesday.
According to the report, one of the arrested officers is a member of the serious and violent crimes (SVC) unit and another works at the Daveyton police station.
But East Rand police spokesperson Superintendent Eugene Opperman declined to comment on the matter.
”We decline to comment until all investigations have been concluded,” he said.
The reported arrests come a week after millions of rands in foreign currency were stolen from the safe last Wednesday night.
The money was part of the loot that was recovered after about $11,39-million was stolen from a carefully planned robbery from a South African Airways plane at Johannesburg International airport on March 25.
Nine people, including employees of the Airports Company South Africa and security guards, were arrested at the time. One suspect died after being wounded during a shoot-out with police.
It is suspected that the loot would have been smuggled out of the country to Zimbabwe.
Part of the loot recovered from the suspects had since been stored in the walk-in police safe while the investigation continued. The money could not yet be banked anywhere because it first had to be checked, counted and used as evidence.
According to Beeld, the safe in the unit’s offices on the second floor is about 120m from the charge office on the ground floor. To get into these offices, one first has to get through a safety gate with an electronic combination lock.
An anonymous source quoted by Beeld said he could not understand how no one managed to ”hear that someone was tackling the door of the safe with an angle grinder”.
Those accused of the airport heist — Mzikisi Magwaza (24), Vusimusi Khumalo (31), Sean Soobramoney (32), Nazir Ismail (38), Rookaya Ebrahim (35) and Magdalene Moonsamy (24), all of them Acsa employees, together with Themba Phutsitsi (33), Annanuis Nepfumbe and Danisa Neo Tsuma — will appear again next week in the Kempton Park Magistrate’s Court. — Sapa