YET ANOTHER stolen container has been recovered by the police in Durban, but a box from the same consignment is still missing.
Acting on information received, members of the Durban Truck Theft Unit last week raided a warehouse in Durban and recovered a container of men's clothing stolen in June this year.
Police told FTW that those responsible for pulling off the heist had taken the container to a warehouse to wait for things to cool down before beginning to dispose of the goods. The whereabouts of the other missing container has not yet been traced.
The cargo was part of a shipment of flannel shirts from Kenya bound for Houston in the USA, and was awaiting transhipment at the terminal when drivers arrived with counterfeit paperwork and calmly removed the boxes.
Two arrests have been made and several other parties are under investigation, including a person from the shipping line handling the transhipment. Those arrested are police detectives who were former members of the Truck Theft Unit, but more recently attached to the Maydon Wharf police station, which has responsibility for policing the entire port area.
The two bent cops have been charged with another crime involving five containers stolen from a private container depot several weeks ago (FTW October 25, 1996). In that case Durban cops suspected that former members of their own unit were responsible and arranged for the Johannesburg Truck Theft Unit to come to Durban and assist with the raid, which netted all five containers and resulted in four arrests.
