ARMED MAN ROBS MAHHALA BUILDING SOCIETY

MATSAPHA – Talk about a daylight robbery! This best describes the daring armed robbery of Swaziland Building Society (SBS) by a single man which took place on Wednesday afternoon at Mahhala, Matsapha.

The robber, who had his head covered by a hooded jacket, single-handedly had a ‘walk in the park’ when he walked into SBS at about 4pm where he found a 30-year-old lone female bank employee and made away with cash.

The bank, which is known as SBS Matsapha 2 Branch, is situated behind Pep Stores, between the Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration Commission (CMAC) offices and Philani Clinic. It is also opposite (about 13 metres away) an  empty structure, which the owner of the complex, Tommy Kirk, offered to the Royal Eswatini Police Service (REPS) to use as a police post, but the latter never used it as they preferred to utilise the mobile office by the main road. The institution is also about 200m away from Mahhala Police Post.

An impeccable source alleged that the bank was about to close when the incident happened. He said when the teller was about to step out of the door, the robber, who was armed with a pistol and carrying a large square black duffel bag, pushed her back into the bank while pointing the pistol straight to her head.
In the meantime, the source disclosed that a terrified security guard stood still by the door and the armed robber warned him not to dare make a movement or sound.

Loaded

Thereafter, the source said the robber threw the bag to the helpless teller and ordered her to fill it with money. He said the teller went behind the counter, opened shelves and loaded cash into the duffel bag until it was full.

Afterwards, he said the robber ordered the woman to follow him with the bag full of cash towards the door, where the security guard was. As they approached the door, he said the robber grabbed the bag from the teller and again gave them orders not to dare try to follow him or make any form of noise.
The source, who spoke to this publication after watching the highly classified closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras footage, said the man was seen literally walking casually through the passages towards the public toilets and down towards Total Filling Station.

“The footage shows him crossing the road near the traffic lights near the filling station towards Star Paint where a car was waiting for him. He got into the car (which could not be identified as it was far from the CCTV camera) and it drove away,” the source said. He said the way the man casually walked with the bag, no one could suspect he was a robber as he did not act like one.

When this publication interviewed some staff members from the surrounding businesses, they said they were shocked when they suddenly saw the place being flooded by uniformed and plain clothes police officers.
“We did not hear anyone shouting for help or signal that there was a robbery. We only learnt about it towards 5pm when the place was littered with police officers,” they said.

An effort by this publication to get hold of either the security guard or the teller proved futile as it was said that they were busy inside the bank with senior staff members.

Deployed

It is worth noting that the bank was closed yesterday and an employee was deployed outside to direct customers to use the other branch, which is near Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC).

Again, about 20 plain clothes police officers from Matsapha and Manzini were patrolling the complex and they included officers from the Serious Crimes Unit (Lukhozi) and Criminal Investigations Department (CID). The officers were led by Manzini Regional Crime Branch Officer (RCBO) Superintendent Clement Sihlongonyane and Manzini Serious Crime Unit’s Bizzah Dlamini.
Chief Police Information and Communications Officer Superintendent Phindile Vilakati confirmed the matter. She said on Wednesday at around 4:10pm, a 30-year-old woman of Ngwane Park reported that she was robbed an undisclosed amount of money which belonged to SBS. She said the woman was robbed by a man who was armed with a pistol while at Mahhala Shopping Complex.
She said the police were still investigating the matter and no one had been arrested yet. On another note, she urged the robber to surrender himself because there was no way he could escape the long arm of the law forever.   
On the same note, SBS Marketing Manager Veli Dlamini also confirmed that there was a robbery at their Matsapha branch. He said no one was injured during the robbery.
However, he said the matter was still under investigation and they were still awaiting a police report. As such, he said the bank was not in a position to discuss the matter any further.

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