Two security guards working for one of Botswana’s top private security companies, G4 Security, have been implicated in the 31st October robbery of REP Office World, allegedly stealing a safe with cash worth P6000.
An officer working for REP Office World told The Sunday Standard that he received a call at around 4am on the said day, informing him that the office alarm had been triggered. When he inquired as to what might have transpired, a G4 Security officer told him that it was a false alarm. He added that the security officer also informed him that the alarm actually went off at around 2am.
“We were surprised when we found quite a lot of damage at our offices the next day. Our company safe was missing while laptops, cameras and other accessories that were lying next to the safe were hardly touched,” said the officer.
Officers from the Criminal Investigation Department were called in to investigate. They would later arrest and detain the two G4S officers who had responded to the alarm call. The two would later admit to stealing the safe, further leading the police to where they had hidden it. They had used explosives to open the safe.
G4 Security Marketing and Public Relations Manager, Nyaladzi Kutjwe, confirmed the incident, adding that the company had instituted internal investigations into the matter. She added that the two suspects had been suspended pending the findings of the investigations.
Kutjwe maintained that G4S generally has a clean record, saying that the last robbery involving their personnel occurred in September 2006.
“To guard against such instances, we have since August 2009 embarked on a project to install Vehicle Tracking Devices that monitor our personnel’s movements. Following the recent incident, we have been working around the clock to complete the exercise,” she said.
She assured members of the public that this is an isolated incident which has helped them to further strengthen their operational procedures to minimize the risk of staff involvement in criminal activities.
At the time of going to press, efforts to solicit a comment from the Botswana Police Service proved futile.
