A collection of luxury timepieces was what linked a robbery accused to a string of criminal activities across the country, including a R36m jewellery heist at a Gqeberha store in September.
However, during his formal bail application in the Gqeberha magistrate’s court on Wednesday, Nkululeko Mthembu denied any involvement in the robbery and claimed he had been assaulted by private security officials to give a false confession about crimes he did not commit.
Mthembu, 29, Olwethu Makhanya, 22, and Sabelo Maphumulo, 24, were arrested in October in connection with an armed robbery at Fischers Jewellers in the Greenacres Shopping Centre on September 2.
Before Mthembu’s bail proceedings started, Makhanya abandoned his bid for bail.
Maphumulo, who previously indicated that he would appoint a private attorney, applied for Legal Aid SA representation instead and his new attorney asked for more time to consult her client.
That resulted in the state leading evidence against Mthembu only on Wednesday.
It is alleged that the three accused were part of a gang that entered Fischers and ordered staff, security guards and members of the public to lie on the floor while they pointed firearms at them and looted the store of luxury jewellery and timepieces.
The robbers then ran from the shopping centre and drove off in two vehicles.
After taking stock of the missing items, staff at the jewellery store told the police the total value of the stolen goods was more than R36m.
The investigating officer, attached to the police’s Provincial Serious and Violent Crime Investigations Unit, Sergeant Nigel Wright, told the court he had been contacted by members of the Crime Intelligence Unit in KwaZulu-Natal on September 12 about a possible link to his robbery investigation.
Mthembu was one of two people arrested in Durban for allegedly being in possession of suspected stolen goods.
The two were allegedly found in possession of three luxury watches and could not explain where they had got them from.
The watches — a Rado, a Rolex and a Diesel — matched items that appeared on Fischers’ catalogue of stolen items.
Wright then travelled to Durban where he verified that the serial number on the Rado watch matched that of one of the watches stolen in Gqeberha.
It was also established that the other two watches were linked to a similar heist in Boksburg, Gauteng, earlier in 2024.
Wright testified that he went to the Durban court on October 22 when Mthembu was scheduled to appear again on the charge of possession of stolen goods.
After the proceedings, he approached Mthembu, introduced himself and explained that he was under arrest for the heist in Gqeberha.
According to Wright, Mthembu ran away but was apprehended by police and security officials outside the court building, and was then transported to Nelson Mandela Bay to make his first court appearance in October.
Wright testified that on their arrival in Gqeberha, Mthembu led him to the rented accommodation in Central where he and his alleged accomplices had stayed before and after the Fischers robbery.
Staff at the accommodation establishment later gave Wright a black bag filled with clothing and a duvet cover.
He said the clothing matched the description of the clothes worn by the perpetrators of the Fischers robbery, while the duvet cover also featured in CCTV footage as the bag they had used to stash their loot before fleeing the scene.
Mthembu’s cellphone also allegedly contained a string of messages in which he sent pictures of luxury watches, with the price tags still attached, to various contacts, offering them for sale.
It also emerged that one of the cars the robbers had used to flee from Greenacres Shopping Centre had been reported as stolen in a hijacking in Tongaat, north of Durban, in August.
Before the state presented its evidence, defence attorney Qhamani Sinefu read out a statement by his client, in which Mthembu claimed he had no knowledge of the robbery and that he was assaulted while in police custody.
He told the court that private security operatives had coerced him into giving a false confession, and that he had told them about things he had no knowledge of to avoid further torture.
He contended that the state had a weak case against him and besides one pending matter in Durban, he had no previous convictions, and there was no indication that he would abscond should he be granted bail.
He said he was the father of three minor children who depended on the income he derived from working at a car wash.
After hearing Wright’s testimony, Sinefu requested that the matter be postponed so he could consult with his client before starting his cross-examination.
Mthembu will remain in custody until the case returns to court on November 22.
HeraldLIVE
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