When Tiny Motlhabani set up her stall at her usual spot near Block 9’s Discount Bar on Wednesday, she had hoped to make up for losses from a previous day’s airtime robbery.
Customers had come early and most of her stock had moved off her vending table, with airtime making most of the P600.00 day’s catch. “I was happy that I would have enough to save towards my kids’ school fees, but sadly the money never reached home,” she said with a look or forlorn resignation.
She recalls that it wasn’t until four neatly dressed men driving a white corolla, pulled up by her stall pretending to buy maize snacks, that her business crumbled.
A man wearing a blue t-shirt snatched her cash container and they all ran off and fled in their car, and accidentally dropped a cellphone in the process.
Shocked, shaken and broke, Motlhabani took the cellphone and reported the matter to the police station.
Whilst looking through the dropped cellphone, Motlhabane says she came across the number of a woman who had robbed her of airtime the previous day.
Motlhabani had trusted the woman with her cellphone to enter her number when she bought airtime.
Instead the woman credited her phone with P200.00 worth of airtime without Motlhabane noticing and vanished without paying.
Later after noticing her loss, Motlhabane sought help from Mascom and managed to trace the woman’s number. “She claimed she forgot to pay and promised to come and pay the following morning. While I was still waiting for her the next morning, the four thieves struck and made away with all my money.
It is clear that they had connived with the woman to rob my business,” she said as she thanked the police for the swift arrest.
thevoicebw.com
