Choppies branches lose over US$11k in robbery

The armed robbers that stole seven trunks of cash that had been collected from Choppies branches in Bulawayo last week, made way with $194 287, US$11 315, R35 595 and 25 pula, after firing several shots during the raid.

National police spokesperson Assistant Commissioner Paul Nyathi said investigations have so far confirmed the figures.

He added that police were in the process of tracking one of the vehicles used during the robbery.

However, Asst Comm Nyathi said the vehicle in question was sold to a lot of people who did not change ownership of the vehicle, but said the net will soon close in on some of the suspects.

He urged people to quickly change vehicle ownership so that it becomes easy to track down the owners in case where such vehicles are used or involved in criminal activities.

On Monday, police in Bulawayo met officials from security companies and businesspeople to come up with a policy to help curb the rising cases of cash-in-transit robberies that have hit the country.

Bulawayo has in recent months recorded a rise in armed robbery cases with robbers getting away with huge sums of money.

In the past two weeks, two armed robberies took place at Ascot Shopping Mall and Choppies Supermarket in Parklands. In the Choppies robbery armed robbers fired several shots before getting away with an undisclosed amount of cash. The Officer Commanding Bulawayo Province, Commissioner Patton Mbangwa will this week be availing a plan that will see them being able to curb the number of armed robberies in the city.

Recently, security guards and staff at Bulawayo's Choppies Parklands Supermarket were questioned by police over the armed robbery that happened last Thursday when robbers stole seven trunks full of takings from all the retail chain's branches in Bulawayo for that day.

Police suspect that the robbery was an inside job and crack Criminal Investigations Department teams from both Harare and Bulawayo have since been activated to investigate and track the suspects who are still at large.

The gang of armed robbers is believed to have trailed the Romicon Security cash-in-transit vehicle as it collected cash from six Choppies Supermarket shops around the city, and pounced on it as it made its seventh collection at the Parklands branch.

They fired warning shots and threatened to shoot anyone who resisted.

The Romicon Security guards were disarmed before the gang grabbed the six trunks from the cash-in-transit vehicle and loaded in a kombi labelled "armoured cash-in-transit vehicle".  The seventh trunk was grabbed from a security guard who was carrying it from the Parklands branch to the cash-in-transit truck.