Crime 101: the dumbest skelms of the year

Crime is no laughing matter. But, although many criminals outsmart the authorities, some crooks put their vocation to shame.

This year’s balaclava for the dumbest criminal is shared by two Free State felons, Thabang Maqelepo and Sefiso Chauke.

They used a panga to attack a strolling couple in Ladybrand on February 21, but the male victim wrestled the weapon from his attackers and wounded  Maqelepo.

Maqelepo and Chauke ran off with clothing they had stolen from the couple, then made their schoolboy error: calling the police to report being attacked, and asking for an ambulance.

Meanwhile their  victims had also been taken to hospital. While they were being interviewed by two police officers, who should appear?  Maqelepo — with an injured arm.

In August, Maqelepo was sentenced to 20 years behind bars for armed robbery. Chauke got 15 years.

Another case involved Mputi Joseph Lothane, who broke into a Ladybrand bar at 6am in April last year and was later found asleep on the premises.

“He allegedly drank liquor until he could not even run away as he was too drunk and just wanted to sleep,” said Sergeant Martin Xuma.

Liquor worth R1700 disappeared, and Lothane was sentenced to three years for business burglary.

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Another headline burglary came courtesy of two robbers in Kempton Park, Gauteng, who mistook a panic button for the gate remote. Captain Jethro Mtshali said the case against Mongezi Vincent Mabhena was yet to be finalised and the second suspect was still at large.

This year police were on the hunt for unusual characters with serious street cred, including a 25-year-old Northern Cape man who broke into the same business in Upington three times  to steal Tupperware, which he then sold — much like women around the country do over a cup of tea and milk tart. When the thief was caught in July, police recovered Tupperware worth R19000.

Meanwhile, three skelms from Madadeni,  KwaZulu-Natal, were caught lugging around  an enormous plastic bag bursting with hairpieces, valued at thousands of rands.

Captain Shooz Magudulela  said hair — especially dreadlocks — was a lucrative business.

Then there are the die-hard partygoers. In June, a Khayelitsha man reported robbers had taken his company vehicle at gunpoint during a house robbery.

An investigation by Detective-Sergeant Nceba Gojo unearthed the prosaic truth. “The man went on a drinking spree with a company vehicle ... when he got robbed,” a police statement said. The man was charged with perjury.

Oupas and oumas also get in on the act. In the Free State, an 85-year-old was arrested by Zastron police for his part in a planned robbery.

The grandfather had allegedly provided a  group of would-be robbers  with a gun.

In King William’s Town,  Eastern Cape, a 63-year-old granny was arrested for possession of an unlicensed firearm and 10 rounds of ammunition.