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Escaped convicts use cheap camouflage

14^th August 2011

By Charles Wilson

The best camouflage is when you are hidden in plain sight.

Escaped convicts use best cheap camouflage

South Africa's most wanted gangster walked out of court under the noses of police guarding him using cheap camouflage. He ditching his crutches and strolled out while police thought they were guarding a man on crutches.

Bongani Moyo, 29, South Africa’s most wanted criminal, has gone on the run for the second time this year after walking out of a courtroom in front of the police guarding him. He is described as dangerous and headed a gang that targeted dozens of banks in a series of 35 armed bank robberies.

Bongani Moyo

Moyo was caught earlier this year, but escaped from prison in March. He was held in Boksburg Prison, east of Johannesburg. Together with six other prisoners he broke out from the lower security prison and fled to his home in Zimbabwe. Apparently there is not much room in Zimbabwe for his niche business, armed robbery. Lawlessness and crime are rather rampant in Zimbabwe and there is not much to rob there anymore. So after three days Moyo decided there was less competition and more lucrative booty South of the border in South Africa.

Moyo did not get far though and was arrested at the Beit Bridge border post as he tried to return from Zimbabwe in May. He was then placed in Pretoria Central Prison, a maximum-security prison, from where he was transferred to police custody for a scheduled hearing in the Pretoria Regional Court.

Zimbabwean Moyo arrived at court on crutches, pretending his leg injury was more serious than it really was. As he was walking on crutches he was not locked up inside a holding cell or shackled in the court building. He was left sitting in the corridor outside the courtroom. When he saw that his guard was distracted, Moyo calmly got up, leaving his crutches, entered an adjoining courtroom and sat with the public.

While the police were looking for someone hobbling around on crutches, Moyo calmly walked passed them together with members of the public. Prison officials said they had warned police that he was a flight risk.

Moyo’s escape happened shortly after he had appeared with his three co-accused on charges of robbery with aggravating circumstances and possession of unlicensed firearms. An eyewitness told police that Moyo was carrying a pile of papers when he left the court. His crutches were left with one of his co-accused.

He is probably the last criminal to make such an escape. The Correctional Matters Amendment Bill, soon to be signed into law by President Jacob Zuma will make it mandatory for prisoners wear a distinctive uniform when they appear in court.

Update: August 28^th 2011

Bongani Moyo the escaped fugitive has been re-arrested. A special police unit, the Gauteng Hawks together with the South African Police in Hillbrow, north of Johannesburg city center, arrested Moyo together with two other fellow Zimbabwean criminal escapees in Hillbrow. Moyo will be kept in the high-risk facility in Hillbrow before being transferred to the Pretoria Central Prison.

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