MANZINI – Three days after the EswatiniBank heist, Standard Bank has been broken into.
Both incidents happened in Manzini. At EswatiniBank, an estimated sum of E1.6 million was stolen on Monday. However, no money was stolen at Standard Bank yesterday as the robbers only made away with a laptop.
The daring early-morning raid at the Standard Bank branch – Manzini Business Centre, ended in failure for two criminals yesterday, as they could not access the vaults, nor did they succeed in accessing the cash in the automated teller machines (ATMs).
One is said to have fled the scene, while another was arrested after he was found outside the bank. This was after the police had been alerted by Buffalo Soldiers, the official security guards protecting the premises.
Police have since asked for assistance from members of the public in locating Mphumelelo Thokozani Manana (26) to assist in their investigations.
This is the second heist targeting a bank in a space of three days, as early on Monday, cunning thieves made away with about E1.6 million from the EswatiniBank. Police are looking for Mzwandile Shongwe, a former employee of the bank in connection with the heist.
However, the police said it is still too early to assimilate the two robberies, as investigations are underway.
In the Standard Bank incident, sources said the thieves gained entry through the roof of the premises, walked past offices and attempted to access the vaults. However, when they failed, they attempted to steal whatever was on sight as accessing the ATMs was almost impossible without the keys nor the relevant tools to break the high tech security features of the machines. They could only steal a laptop.
It was said that the security guard posted to the bank noticed that there was some activity within the bank and called his superiors as well as the police. It could not be ascertained if the security alarm in the bank went off to automatically alert the response office of the security company and the managers of the bank.
“The suspects may have targeted the bank’s automatic teller machines (ATMs). However, their attempts to breach the high-security machines proved unsuccessful, and they failed to retrieve a single Lilangeni before police arrived on the scene.”
The Scenes of Crime Police Unit and a contingent of plain clothes officers were deployed to comb the area for forensic evidence.
Employees of the bank could not access the premises yesterday after police marked the whole building as a crime scene by cordoning off the scene.
Standard Bank Eswatini Chief Executive Mvuselelo Fakudze promptly arrived to ascertain the situation and was seen communicating with the staff and the police for the better part of the morning.
In an interview, he confirmed that the premises had been broken into, but said he had no idea if anything had been confirmed stolen.
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