At approximately 01:00 on Thursday morning, Marshall Security was alerted by a neighbour that a house robbery had occurred in Danville Avenue, Durban North.
Armed reaction officers responded to the scene and further information ascertained indicated that four men armed with handguns, forced entry to the home via a rear window, before confronting the family who was asleep at the time. The armed men bound the family members hands with cable ties and duct tape before confining them to a bedroom.
The four suspects then proceeded to ransack the family home, stealing flatscreen televisions, laptop computers, jewellery and other undisclosed items, loading the goods into the homeowner’s Range Rover motor vehicle before fleeing in an unknown direction.
Further information obtained revealed the vehicle to be fitted with a satellite tracking device and our Special Operations Team was activated to assist. A location signal was found repeating in the Inanda area and our team descended on the location, intercepting the vehicle on a dirt road.
In an attempt to evade arrest, the suspects fled and a high-speed chase ensued, with the suspects losing control of the Range Rover, smashing into a shack adjacent to the roadway. The armed men then alighted from the vehicle and began shooting at our officers who returned fire, fatally wounding one of the men, two others sustained gunshot wounds and were arrested on scene. Their accomplice fled on foot and remains at large. Our officers were not harmed.
Three occupants of the shack, including a pregnant woman, suffered injury ranging from minor to moderate as a result of the suspects’ vehicle smashing into their home and were treated and stabilized on scene by Crisis Medical paramedics, before being taken to a nearby receiving medical facility for further care.
With the assistance of the South African Police Services, a search of nearby premises revealed the property taken from the home in Danville Avenue.
The suspects were found to be in possession of two firearms and live ammunition. One of the firearms was later confirmed to have been stolen in a recent house robbery in Haig Road, Redhill.
The suspects have been linked to a spate of house robberies which have rocked the greater Durban North area of late, including an attempted house robbery in Adelaide Tambo (Kensington) Drive earlier on Wednesday night. This arrest comes as a result of a joint effort between Marshall Security and the Durban North South African Police Services.
The scene was secured and handed over to the Inanda South African Police Services for further investigation and processing.
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