FIVE men and two women ran out of luck after they were bust while digging up copper cables along the railway line near Century City in Cape Town on Wednesday evening, 26 October.
Members of the Law Enforcement Metal Theft Unit were tipped off about people who were stealing cables along Sable Road.
“Upon arrival, they found seven suspects, two females and five males, digging up copper cables along the railway line situated next to the air force base. The suspects, who became aware of the officers’ presence, dropped various implements they were using and fled along the railway line towards Sable Road,” said law enforcement unit’s spokesman Wayne Dyason.
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The cops already knew the direction in which they would run and had placed more officers there.
The suspects ran straight into the hands of the officers who were waiting to arrest them.
Dyason said: “The officers had already anticipated the most likely route the suspects would use to try and escape and they had placed officers along this path. The suspects fled into the arms of the waiting officers and all seven of them were arrested.”
Cops recovered four spades, a garden fork, four bolt cutters, two picks, three side cutters, pliers, two hacksaw blades, a knife, two axes and two stripped bundles of railway cable.
The incident occurred as Metrorail is working hard towards to put trains back in operation after severe vandalism led to the suspension of trains on some routes, especially those going to townships such as Khayelitsha.
