Residents urged to be vigilant after carjacking and kidnapping incidents

Pietermaritzburg residents are being urged to remain vigilant after a man was kidnapped in the city centre and held for hours while robbers withdrew a large sum of money from his bank account. The incident is one of two recent crimes reported in the city, including a carjacking in Bombay Heights, in which thieves posed as good Samaritans offering to assist a motorist with a punctured tyre. In the first incident, the resident was kidnapped in the Pietermaritzburg CBD and taken to an unknown location where he was held for several hours.

The victim said the ordeal began at around 7.45 pm last Friday night when several men surrounded his vehicle. They took me at gunpoint to an unknown location. I kept my head down the entire time.

“Four men remained with me and threatened to take me to uMshwathi and said I would not return if I did not co-operate,” he said. The robbers demanded his cellphone, passcodes and banking information. He said they later discovered another phone belonging to his late mother, which contained his father’s banking details.

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I could hear them asking each other for codes and making changes. That’s when I realised they were taking money from my account. “They kept hitting me and arguing among themselves,” he said. He was eventually driven to an area near Richmond and told to leave.

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