BANK MANAGER, HUBBY HELD HOSTAGE, ROBBED E158 000 ITEMS

MBABANE – A bank manager in one of the international financial institutions and her husband, who is also a manager in one of the mobile telephony companies, endured a night of misery, as three thieves broke into their house and held them captive.

The couple was said to have been held hostage in their own household on Friday night at Mpolonjeni, Mbabane. The robbers stole items valuated at E158 000. The wife is reportedly holding a high position at an international bank, which has its offices in the country, while the husband also holds a high position at one of the local mobile network operators.
The items that the robbers went away with include a Mazda 2 vehicle, furniture, clothes, kitchen cutlery, an electric stove and other valuables, whose total amounts to E158 000.

Recovered

The stolen property included a fridge, deep-freezer, TV set, speakers, electricity plugs, a solar, electric stove, dishes, washing and bathing soaps, suitcase, cooler-boxes, which were later recovered. The couple, from Mpolonjeni in the Hhohho Region, were left tied with ropes by the robbers and their mouths were stuffed with material that made it hard for them to raise the alarm. Sources have shared that a neighbour suspected that there might be something wrong and called the police who, in line with their ‘Seskhona’ slogan, attended to the scene swiftly.
Police are said to have to come to the rescue of the couple, who remained tied after the robbery incident and they detailed their ordeal to the men in blue.

“For some strange reason, the neighbour suspected that something was amiss at the couple’s homestead and decided to call the police, who attended the scene, only to find that the robbers had long left,” said the source.  The trio were reportedly arrested by the police as they returned from Ludzeludze, where they had disposed some of the stolen items through selling them.
The sources said the three suspects, aged 24, 28 and 34, did not just hold the couple hostage, but they also went away with the goods valued at E158 000, including a vehicle which the police later recovered. The vehicle, as detailed by the sources, was driven by one of the robbers when police pounced on it, leading to the arrest of the trio.

Our sister publication, Eswatini News, on Saturday, reported that it took robbers about five minutes to bomb and rob two ATMs over E1.3 million and the Royal Eswatini Police Services’ (REPS) swift intervention saw some of them being arrested within an hour. The incident took place at Mpaka Shopping Complex in the Lubombo Region, in the early hours of Saturday morning, around 1am, and the two affected automated teller machines (ATMs) belong to First National Bank (FNB) and EswatiniBank.

Chief Police Information and Communications Officer, Senior Superintendent Phindile Vilakati, said there were no new arrests made on the case and police are still investigating.
On the matter concerning the robbery of the couple, Vilakati confirmed the incident. She detailed that three suspects had been arrested by the police in connection with the robbery and the vehicle they stole was recovered and it is in police custody. “Fortunately, when the police were doing their patrols at night, they discovered the vehicle, leading to the arrest of the three suspects,” said Vilakati.

Burglary

According to the REPS Second Quarter Performance Report, tabled in Parliament recently, housebreaking with intent to steal and theft criminality occurred in both business and residential areas when the residence was unoccupied and occupants would only discover the burglary on their return. The targeted areas are mainly urban and peri-urban, where quick escape routes are easily accessed by the offenders, as revealed in the report.

“The Royal Eswatini Police Service, in partnership with relevant stakeholders continues to intensify the existing neighbourhood watch schemes through capacitation as an intervention for target hardening which, therefore, has a propensity of decreasing and limiting the occurrence of the offence thereto,” reads the report.  According to the report, with regard to prioritised and serious crimes, there has been a decrease of three per cent. There were 595 robberies reported in the period between July 1 to September 30 in 2023, and the figure declined to 516 in the same period in 2024.

Serious crimes that were on the decrease include armed robbery (-61.8 per cent), Murder (-39.3 per cent), attempted murder (-50 per cent), robberies (-13.3 per cent), stock theft (-16.7 per cent) and car theft (-5.7 per cent). “This decline is as a result of a combination of strategies or programmes including visible policing, public educational programmes and partnerships with various categories of stakeholders in the crime-fighting value chain”, reads the report. The incident occured at a time when there is a high crime wave in the country, which has seen police reporting multiple crimes across the country, with murder being the most reported offence.

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