Security guard who allegedly stole R4m in 2019 finally caught, appears in court

Bathobile Mlangeni appears in the Alexandra magistrate's court on January 14 2022.

A former security guard who had been on the run after allegedly stealing R4m in 2019 was arrested last week after the Gauteng task team for serious and violent crime received a tip-off that she was hiding in Zola, Soweto.

Bathobile Mlangeni, 29, wearing a light-coloured blouse, made her first appearance at the Alexandra magistrate's court on Friday morning, where she applied for legal aid. Her bail hearing was postponed to Monday for a legal aid attorney to be appointed for her.

Mlangeni, who worked as a security guard at one of the biggest cash-in-transit companies in SA, allegedly cut open two bulk cash bags and transferred the money into a number of refuse bags before placing them in a trolley and walking out the Mall of Africa, where she was on duty. Two weeks after Mlangeni allegedly executed the audacious theft in July 2019, she sought refuge in a three-roomed RDP house in Buhle Park township, near Germiston, under the pretext of being on the run from “an abusive boyfriend”.