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Hit squads, cops torture cash-in-transit guards

Pumza Fihlani

Pumza Fihlani

Death always stalks cash-in-transit security guards as they go about their daily work, but their fear of armed robbers is not the only hazard they face.

Sowetan found out yesterday that the guards also feared what they called the "hit squad", whose job is to "extract" confessions after a heist in which money is stolen.

Guards said the hit squad was hired by management several years ago under the pretence that they were policemen.

Whenever management suspects an inside job, the guards on the scene at the time of the heist are handed over to the hit squad for interrogation.

A Coin Security guard, whose name has been withheld, said yesterday: "We are taken to secluded places where they force us to confess to things we do not know anything about.

"They put electric prongs on our genitals and shock us until we say what they want to hear."

Another employee said: "They beat me for three days all because I did not have my gun at the time of the heist. Management claimed I had deliberately left it behind because I knew there would be a heist."

A doctor's report shows he sustained internal injuries and fractured two ribs as a result of the assault.

George Maduna, one of the four men who was held for questioning after the recent R50million burglary at a Modderfontein depot, said: "I have been working for the company for 10 years and not once has a white person been tortured after a heist.

"Black people are tortured all the time. Because we are black 'they' automatically assume we are guilty. This is unfair and racist."

Coin Security spokesman, Anke Potgieter, refused to comment.

Solly Mthibedi of the Motor and Trade Workers' Union, who represents Coin Security guards, could not be reached for comment at the time of going to press.

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