Three security guards were wounded after their armoured cash van was peppered by gunfire and run off the R33 on the outskirts of Greytown‚ in central KZN‚ on Wednesday.

The guards‚ surrounded by gunmen‚ watched as an explosive charged ripped through the vehicle‚ leaving the vaults within exposed.

Police spokesman Brigadier Vish Naidoo said that the armoured vehicle had been travelling from Msinga to Greytown after picking up money from the Msinga Mall.

“While at KwaKopi between Msinga and Greytown their vehicle was attacked by unknown number of occupants travelling in two vehicles.

“They shot at the security vehicle causing the driver to lose control. Three guards were injured. The suspects used explosives to open up the vehicle and they fled with an undisclosed amount of cash‚” he added.

Naidoo said that injured security guards were rushed to hospital by ambulance.

TimesLIVE previously reported that the attack is the first recorded use of explosives in cash-in-transit heists in KwaZulu-Natal in recent history.

This follows what police hailed as a significant breakthrough in the war on CIT bombings‚ with the arrest of 23 people including a Tshwane Metro policewoman‚ in raids across Pretoria and Johannesburg last week.

They have also been linked to heists which occurred across South Africa earlier this year.

The latest arrests bring the number of suspected cash heist robbers caught since May to 50.