Just a day before a foiled heist involving a Mpumalanga traffic cop, a group of men, one with a rifle, were caught on camera driving high end cars into her garage, including one later found at the scene.
Two days later a multi-disciplinary team of police broke into the gate of traffic officer Khanyisile Viola Nyalunga’s home in Kabokweni. They also found two stolen cars and arrested her for the attempted cash-in-transit heist that was followed by a shoot-out between a gang of robbers and Fidelity security guards on Thursday in Hazyview.
The six-minute-long footage shows about six unidentifiable men pacing about and walking into the backhouse where Nyalunga lives. The house is in a compound owned by her late parents and has a main house, a double-storey mansion with several CCTV cameras mounted on it.
One of the cameras which faces towards Nyalunga’s house shows men walking around her property while others park their cars in her garage. Time stamps on the video suggest that it was recorded on July 26, a day before the robbery.
According to the police, a grey Mercedes-Benz sedan rammed into an armoured Fidelity. The suspects immediately started to shoot at the truck, injuring the security guards. Another vehicle with security guards also arrived and returned fire. The suspects fled in three other sedan vehicles.
Nyalunga was identified by witnesses as the person who came to pick up some of the robbers using her personal car, a white Audi hatchback. On further investigation, two stolen cars – a silver Mercedes-Benz ML 250 and Mercedes-Benz C class sedan – were seen on her property.
In the video, a man dressed in a white T-shirt is seen walking into the house while a grey sedan Benz follows him and parks in front of the garage door. The man then opens the door and the car drives into the garage.
Moments later, a group of men emerge and one of them is armed with what looks like a rifle. An armed man is then seen standing by the door and talking to someone inside the house.
The video jumps and shows the sedan being taken out of the garage and disappears into the camera's blind spot in the yard before a silver Mercedes-Benz ML is driven into the garage, whose doors are then shut.
One man is seen carrying a bag, taking it towards the parked sedan. Moments later, another person – in what looks like a brown uniform – is seen walking to the back of a parked white hatchback which had just pulled into the yard. The person then takes out bags from the vehicle before driving off.
Nyalunga, who is attached to the Mbombela Traffic Department satellite office in Hazyview, made her first appearance in court on Monday where the NPA placed her at the robbery crime scene. In her defence she told the court that her brother Desmond Khululekani Siyoko, had called her to come and rescue him as he was being attacked.
“She told the court that she was there [ on the scene] to remove her brother as his life was in danger. It turned out that brother was also a suspect in a string of crimes which involve being in illegal possession of an AK-47, guns and ammunition and was also linked to the Thursday heist through a statement by his sister,” said NPA spokesperson Monica Nyuswa.
She [Nyuswa] added that Siyoko absconded his appearance on Wednesday at the White River magistrate’s court on gun possession charges. The same court denied Nyalunga’s bail on Wednesday saying she was a flight risk. The NPA had also told the court that Nyalunga had personally booked accommodation in which the heist was hatched.
Nyalunga is charged with attempted murder, pointing of firearm, possession of ammunition and property, robbery and conspiracy to commit robbery.
Her friend, who wanted to stay anonymous, told Sowetan that Nyalunga was from a well-off family with her mother being a teacher and later a ward councillor. Both parents died when she was still young. Her sister is an accountant.
“They are a big family and after school, she couldn’t find work and started doing short learnership courses until she became a traffic officer three years ago. That job improved her lifestyle and she started to build rental homes and partying a lot,” said the friend.
Sowetan has also established that Nyalunga runs another business where she sells perfumes on her Facebook page. The page had been active until Thursday.
A neighbour told Sowetan that they were also shocked when they learnt of Nyalunga’s arrest.
“We didn’t suspect anything. She lived a nice life and didn’t like to brag about her achievements. We’d sometimes see her driving different cars and because she has a big family we thought the cars belonged to her brothers,” said the neighbour.
Mbombela municipality spokesperson Joseph Ngala said Nyalunga hasn’t been suspended yet.
“We’ll await the court process to unfold and our own processes can only unfold after she’s back at work. Also, she will not be remunerated while incarcerated,” said Ngala.
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