Recently crowned WBA Pan African junior featherweight boxing champion Innocent “Tycoon” Mantengu is pleading for robbers to return his boxing belts.
Thugs violently robbed Mantengu of a bag full of clothes and two boxing belts and also forcefully ripped a gold necklace from his neck.
He is pleading with them to drop off his boxing belts – the IBF All Africa and WBA Pan African featherweight titles – at the Park Station satellite police station. Mantengu said the belts are off no value to the robbers.
The boxer said the robbery took place on Friday evening around 8pm in De Villiers Street in Johannesburg.
Sharing the unpleasant experience, he said 10 men – some armed with knives and two with guns – accosted him and helped themselves to whatever they could lay their hands on before fleeing. At the time he was heading to Park Station to board a bus to Durban for a boxing indaba that took place on Saturday.
“I am pleading for sympathy from those persons who took my bag full of clothes and boxing belts to be kind and just drop the belts at the police station in Park station,” he said yesterday. “There is nothing they can do with them; they can’t sell them; they can’t even take them to pawn shops, so it is best just to drop them off at the police station.”
He won the IBF All Africa belt in 2017 in East London and added the WBA Pan African strap to his collection last month after outpointing Luthando Mbumbulwana over 12 hard-fought rounds in the J4Joy Boxing Promotions tournament at Sandton Convention Centre.
The boxer began his career under trainer Thulani Nkwanyana – who is now SA’s powerful Inyanga known as Dr 3 Seconds – before relocating to Johannesburg where he teamed up with Samson Ndlovu, his homeboy in Mtubatuba and former professional boxer who now trains fighters.
Mantengu, 29, said: “After the robbery, I ran to the police station at Park Station to report the matter but the police said their duty is to patrol inside Park Station. They took me along the streets in search for those guys but we could not find them. We then returned to the police station where I wrote an affidavit. They then advised me to continue with my trip to Durban and open a case there. Luckily, I was still in possession of my wallet, my phone and my bus ticket, so I boarded the bus, went to Durban and opened the case at Umbilo police station.”
A policeman at Umbilo police station confirmed to Sowetan that a case of robbery has been opened by the professional boxer. He said he personally assisted Mantengu.
“The docket is yet to be registered and transferred to Johannesburg where the robbery took place. I have his [Mantengu] ID number and his Johannesburg residential address; I helped him open the case,” he said before refusing to divulge his identity.
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