Community leaders and members from Browns Farm in Philippi have urged mense to stop falling ads on social media sites like MarketPlace as they are more likely to be skelms trying to lure them to the area.
Colonel Wynand Muller, Acting Station Commander in the Nyanga precinct, says most victims are from the Northern Suburbs and Atlantic Seaboard, and unaware of the area’s bad reputation.
He explains: “The suspects lure their potential buyers with mainly electronic items and bicycles ‘sold at a bargain price’.
“They then wait for the clients and rob and beat them, as well as damage their vehicles.
“We've also seen the suspects offering to pay people petrol money to deliver the goods they are selling, and the same thing happens to them.”
The top cop says this is an ongoing problem and has urged potential buyers to rather arrange meetings at a public place at a time when people are around or even at a police station.
In 2022, a 51-year-old man from Glencairn was stabbed to death after being lured to Brown’s Farm by a potential buyer for his TV which he had advertised on Facebook Marketplace.
A Brown’s Farm resident says the skelms are known to them and they’ve tried to stop them.
The anonymous source shares: “They are a group of about eight to ten and even if we try to interfere, they don't stop.
“They will just tell us they are not robbing us, why are we interfering.
“What is worse is that they are not staying on the side where they lure the people to, they use other house numbers.
“That is why I want to warn the people who like to buy or sell something on Marketplace not to come to Browns Farm, please, I am begging you, it's not nice seeing you guys getting hurt.
“I wish they could remove Brown’s Farm from Google Maps.”
Nyanga Community Policing Forum (CPF) secretary Dumisani Qwebe says the Marketplace targeting has been an ongoing challenge with complaints coming through daily.
Qwebe adds: “We have called on the government to help us. This should be prioritised and published widely.
“Until then we are asking people to please not respond to adverts from Brown’s Farm. Don't go to Brown’s Farm at any time.
“If it's a must, then go to a police station and meet there, but don’t come into the area.”
Qwebe says another problem they have is that the victims are often scared to make police cases or even follow through with court cases when arrests are made.
Police spokesperson Colonel Andre Traut says three groups of suspects linked to the MarketPlace robberies have been apprehended by Nyanga detectives in the last year and these suspects are still behind bars.