Police in South Africa’s North West have arrested a 38-year-old suspected serial rapist who allegedly targeted Shona-speaking Zimbabwean women.
The man reportedly used Facebook to lure more than 15 women by advertising jobs and would then rape and rob them when they arrived at the rendezvous.
Police spokesperson Colonel Adele Myburgh said the man was arrested on Tuesday after police received information about his whereabouts.
Myburgh revealed that one of the cases was reported in Potchefstroom on 9 September 2021. She said:
A 27-year-old woman, who was allegedly scheduled to meet a lady who promised her a job via WhatsApp, arrived at a shopping centre close to the taxi rank in Potchefstroom.
The woman, who was from Johannesburg, met with a man as arranged by the lady she had been communicating with. She and the man boarded a taxi and alighted at Extension 11, Ikageng.
The man allegedly took the woman to a bushy and secluded place next to the N12, where she was ultimately overpowered, strangled, raped and robbed of her personal property.
More than 15 rapes, all with the same method, had been reported between September 2021 and October 2022, added Myburgh.
She said the man was arrested at a house in Alabama, close to Klerksdorp.
The man was found with a knife and various cellphone sim cards, which police seized. Said Myburgh:
The team then proceeded to the suspect’s residence in Jouberton, Extension 11, where 11 bags full of ladies’ clothes (suspected to be belonging to victims) and eight cell phones were found. More sim cards were also seized.
The man appeared in the Potchefstroom Magistrate’s Court on Thursday charged with several charges of kidnapping, rape, and robbery.
He was remanded in custody and will appear in court again on 1 November. | News24