The killing of two security officers tasked with protecting an electrical substation from cable thieves has highlighted the danger that lurks behind the crime often referred to as economic sabotage.
The officers, who were part of a reaction team stationed at Verref substation in Vereeniging, south of Johannesburg, were gunned down on Friday, two days after four of their colleagues were brutally assaulted with pipes and landed in hospital.
The guards, employed by Wenzile Phaphama Security, have been hired to protect six substations and hundreds of kilometres of copper cable networks which criss-cross Emfuleni. The municipality has been hard hit by cable theft in recent months, with at least one incident of theft reported a week, according to Emfuleni’s lead administrator, Gilberto Martins.
For more on this article, please visit SowetanLIVE.
Copper cable thieves get violent and deadly
Two security guards at substation brutally murdered
Image: Getty/ANTONIO MUCHAVE
The killing of two security officers tasked with protecting an electrical substation from cable thieves has highlighted the danger that lurks behind the crime often referred to as economic sabotage.
The officers, who were part of a reaction team stationed at Verref substation in Vereeniging, south of Johannesburg, were gunned down on Friday, two days after four of their colleagues were brutally assaulted with pipes and landed in hospital.
The guards, employed by Wenzile Phaphama Security, have been hired to protect six substations and hundreds of kilometres of copper cable networks which criss-cross Emfuleni. The municipality has been hard hit by cable theft in recent months, with at least one incident of theft reported a week, according to Emfuleni’s lead administrator, Gilberto Martins.
For more on this article, please visit SowetanLIVE.
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