Cops are hunting men driving a luxury Audi and armed with AK47s who kidnapped yet another prominent Cape Town businessman in Parow Valley on Wednesday morning.
Crime fighter Hanif Loonat has confirmed that Ismail Rajah, 69, was taken outside his Good Hope Construction offices in Joubert Street.
Police say the elderly businessman was sitting in his white Porsche Cayenne at about 11am when two armed men approached and dragged him from the larney car before bundling him into their Audi Q7.
Loonat, who was with the devastated family of Rajah on Wednesday, told the Daily Voice: “There is a trend of business people being kidnapped. And this doesn’t look like normal fly-by-night type of kidnappers, these are professionals.
“There were eight or nine people who took him, they were heavily armed and there were various cars used. They ambushed him before he got out of his car.”
He said there has been no contact or demands for ransom thus far.
When the Daily Voice visited the scene in Parow Valley, the police forensic officials were dusting the victim’s Porsche SUV for fingerprints.
Some of his shaken employees sat outside and watched as the police combed the scene.
A witness who wished to remain anonymous told the Daily Voice that two men with guns approached Rajah’s car.
“It happened so fast. I was standing across the street when I saw them go to the man in the car. They got him out of it and put him in another car.
“No shots were fired, it happened quietly, the man is said to be rich.
“I had never witnessed anything like that in my life.”
Police spokesman Sergeant Wesley Twigg says: “According to reports, the victim was getting out of his vehicle when two persons armed with AK47s exited a charcoal Audi Q7 and kidnapped him. They fled the scene towards De La Rey Road.”
Police spokesman Captain Frederick van Wyk confirmed Western Cape provincial organised crime detectives are on the case with no arrests yet.
Good Hope Construction (GHC), which was previously contracted by the City of Cape Town to build houses in Manenberg, has made headlines in the past.
In 2015, GHC plasterers – citing a violation of labour laws – embarked on a strikeThe 170 plasterers, who were represented by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), protested at GHC sites in Macassar, Scottsdene, Philippi East and Delft, where property was damaged and work brought to a standstill for four weeks.
In court papers, GHC said several of their employees were kidnapped, “stripped naked and whipped with a sjambok” and also beaten with knobkieries.
At the time, the Weekend Argus reported NUM spokesman Benson Ngqentsu as saying that the strike came after GHC had systematically violated labour laws.
“GHC has not provided protective equipment. There have been endless unprocedural lay-offs and workers have not been remunerated correctly.
“Other issues are overtime remuneration, employment of gangsters as security, the killing of one of our members and threats to our members,” Ngqentsu said.
However, GHC owner Raziek Rajah, the son of Ismail Rajah, denied any involvement in the murder, saying GHC did not employ gangsters as security.