This news article in the Johannesburg papers this morning...
http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_1942522,00.html
No comment from me as well (and neither from the police bosses)......
Cops held for safe theft
31/05/2006 07:17 - (SA)
R85m stolen from police safe
Burglars crack police safe
Pretoria - At least four policemen were apparently arrested and questioned about a burglary last week from the safes of the SAPS serious and violent crimes (SVC) unit in Benoni, on the East Rand. Millions of rands in foreign currency were stolen.
The burglary took place last Wednesday night and the money, apparently more than R10m, was stolen from right under the noses of the police.
Beeld's sources said one of the arrested policemen is a member of the SVC in Benoni and another works at the Daveyton police station.
The stolen money was apparently part of loot that was recovered after about $11.39m (about R69m) was stolen on March 25 in a carefully planned robbery from an SAA plane at Johannesburg International Airport.
Nine people, including employees of the Airports Company (Acsa) and security guards, were arrested at the time. A 10th suspect died later after being wounded during a shoot-out with the police. It is suspected that the loot would have been smuggled out of the country to Zimbabwe.
Part of the loot that was recovered from the suspects has since then been stored in the walk-in safe at the SVC unit in Benoni while the investigation continued. As the foreign currency worth more than R10m first had to be checked and counted before it could be stored as evidence, it could not yet be banked anywhere.
Beeld's sources claim that at least four policemen were arrested on Tuesday.
Though Beeld established from various sources that the arrests did take place, police spokesperson superintendent Eugene Opperman denied this on Tuesday night.
No comment
"We cannot comment because the investigation is still proceeding. According to my information, no one has been arrested or charged yet,"he said.
Phone calls to provincial spokesperson superintendent Lungelo Dlamini were just as fruitless. "I don't know about anything like that," he said.
Police circles on the East Rand were abuzz about the burglary and some of Beeld's sources guessed that police members might have been involved.
The safe in the unit's offices on the second floor is about 120m from the charge office on the ground floor.
To get into these offices, one first has to get through a safety gate with an electronic combination lock. ³How no one in the charge office could hear that someone was tackling the door of the safe with an angle grinder, is beyond my understanding,² a police source told Beeld.
Mzikisi Magwaza, 24, Vusimusi Khumalo, 31, Sean Soobramoney, 32, Nazir Ismail, 38, Rookaya Ebrahim, 35, and Magdalene Moonsamy, 24, all of them Acsa employees, will appear again next week together with Themba Phutsitsi, 33, Annanuis Nepfumbe and Danisa Neo Tsuma in the Kempton Park magistrate's court for the airport heist.