Female staff of Pep Stores at Sediba Plaza were threatened at gunpoint and locked up during an armed robbery on Friday morning, 2 October 2020.

“Three men, who arrived in a silver Mercedes C200,  entered Pep Stores at Sediba Plaza at about 10:15 pretending to shop. They were all wearing masks and hats and browsed around before they moved to the counter. At the counter one of the men took a firearm out of his shopping basket and told the female staff members to keep quiet and go into the office where they were locked up,” said Romano van der Spuy, chairman of the Hartbeespoort community policing forum.

The robbers took two bags with cellphones that were delivered the previous day, emptied the tills and fled in the Mercedes. “The Mercedes was parked in front of an adjacent shop and the shop owner managed to get the number plates before the men fled. It was later established that the number plates were false.”

According to Van der Spuy, who was on the scene, the staff members were not injured but severely traumatised. The Hartbeespoort police are investigating the business robbery.