CHILLING VIDEO shows woman snatching baby from trolley in supermarket as parents were busy shopping
GQEBERHA, SOUTH AFRICA: A baby was reportedly snatched from a shopping trolley while her parents' backs were turned in a local supermarket, just weeks after a similar incident.
Shocking CCTV footage showed a woman in her 50s strolling calmly down the aisle in the freezer section of a Cash & Carry store in Port Elizabeth. However, when she reaches the trolley of the young mum and dad, she swiftly grabs the toddler and walks away with the little girl. The alleged kidnapper is subsequently arrested before she could leave the store with an alleged accomplice.
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The young mother and father, aged 23 and 28 respectively, are seen taking some frozen food from the shelves and turning around to see their daughter being taken away by the woman. They loudly scream for help before the father bolts towards the front doors of the store in Cleary Park. He tells the security guards his baby has been kidnapped and locks the doors to the establishment. As the doors are shut, a woman approaches the distraught father and points out his daughter being carried by her friend, reportedly telling him it was all a "joke." The parents grabbed their daughter back and the security staff immediately called the police on the two women, reportedly aged 51 and 56. Responding officers arrested the duo, who are unknown to the parents, on suspicion of attempted kidnapping. They were taken to the police station, where they continued to insist they were "just fooling about."
A one-year-old girl was snatched from a trolley at a cash and carry in Cleary Park, Gqeberha yesterday. Security was alerted and the child was found in the store. Police subsequently arrested two suspects. #Kidnappings pic.twitter.com/1ab7MT5PuN
— Yusuf Abramjee (@Abramjee) September 6, 2022
After reviewing the surveillance footage, Colonel Priscilla Naidu said one of the women was seen passing the trolley and touching the baby's head before walking away. "Within seconds another female approached and in the blink of an eye snatched the child and walked away as the parents were at the fridges," Naidu explained. "Their backs were to the trolley and the child was gone in a second then the father turned around and saw his baby was missing and ran to the doors. As the guard was closing the doors the first woman pointed out to the father that the child was with the second suspect and said they were 'just joking'. Two women aged 51 and 56 were detained while we investigate an alleged kidnapping," the colonel added.
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This comes just a couple of weeks after a similar incident made headlines when mum-of-two Danielle Wolff posted a store CCTV footage of her baby daughter being snatched on Facebook. Wolff's daughter was sitting on the child seat of her shopping trolley as she looked through chilled meat fridges at her local SuperSpar store in the city of Alberton, near Johannesburg. However, when she momentarily turned her back to pick up some items, a male store employee was seen calmly walking over and snatching her baby from the trolley. Wolff turned around and found her eight-month-old daughter missing. She screamed in horror and then saw her daughter being carried away by the employee. She ran up to him and grabbed her baby back while shouting, "Where were you taking her? What were you going to do with her?"
The South African Police Service was called in. They reviewed the CCTV footage and subsequently arrested staff member Mduduzi Tholebaon on suspicion of kidnapping. He appeared in court and was bailed and suspended from SuperSpar for allegedly snatching the baby from a shopping trolley. It's worth noting that videos of the attempted kidnapping have rocked South Africa, where child-trafficking is now a big business, the Daily Mail reported.