Stolen Metrorail cables recovered
Benoni – Metrorail has recovered stolen cables from the Van Ryn station in Benoni worth millions of rands.
The railway company’s protection services investigation team acted on a tip-off, which led to the arrests of two people in Heidelberg.
Thousands of commuters were left stranded on Monday morning after the theft stopped trains operating in that corridor, and commuters had to make last-minute plans to get to work or school.
Metrorail said it had seen a spike in the number of cables being stolen by criminals, resulting in train services being suspended for hours at a time.
Metrorail called on communities to work with police to track down and arrest those dealing with stolen cables.
Metrorail spokesperson Lillian Mofokeng said: “Communities have to name and shame the people who are involved in these acts of criminality. We believe that these people are in our communities, we know them, we know the scrapyards they’re feeding, so we are from time to time doing random visits with the police.”
After the recovery of the cables Mofokeng said two suspects were identified. “They were busy cutting down cables and melting them to ensure they lose identity. It is evident that when communities partner with Metrorail officials and law enforcement agencies to fight this element of criminality, we will succeed,” she said.
