Foiled Laptop Theft Reveals Power of Everyday Heroes

On Wednesday the 6^th of June, Capetonian Oliver Power was innocently enjoying a working  lunch at Clarkes on Bree Street, when his laptop was snatched from under his table. Following a remarkable series of events that unfolded like an action movie, the laptop was miraculously found and returned the following day.

Power recalls that a waitress at Clarke’s had noticed two young men “behaving suspiciously”. However, when she saw them leaving with his laptop bag, she quickly alerted him. She chased the thieves onto the street, shouting after them as they tried to make a fast getaway in a taxi on Loop Street.

Alarmed by the waitress’s cries, three male pedestrians managed to get to the taxi before it pulled away, and forced the thieves out. The perpetrators tried to run but a crowd had quickly formed down the street ahead of them, making sure they could not get away before the police arrived. Meanwhile, the taxi driver had driven off.

It was only afterwards that everyone realised the thieves had actually left the laptop, a MacBook Pro, in the taxi. No-one had taken notice of the vehicle’s license plate or the name of the taxi firm. Power, who runs a small media company, confessed that he had not backed up his laptop which had “his whole life” on it, and feared that it was “long gone”.

The two thieves, presumed to be in their late teens or early twenties, were taken to the Cape Town Central Police Station where Power managed to convince authorities to hold them overnight – just in case the evidence of the crime did miraculously turn up.

The next morning, having had no luck with any of the taxi companies he tried to call, Power was close to giving up. Then at around 9.30am, in a twist of fate, he received an email from a Joseph Mugumira, the very taxi driver Power was trying to reach, saying he had found the laptop under the back seat of the taxi and that he would keep it safely until Power came to collect it.

Mugumira, a Zimbabwean, says that shortly after the infamous event, he parked his taxi and realised that the laptop was still in his car. It was also still on, so he saw that it belonged to a Mr Oliver Power. Mugumira quickly tracked him down on Facebook and sent him a message directly from his phone.

Having not heard back from Power by morning, Mugumira decided to look for his email address on the laptop and promptly sent him an email. He continued to wait for a response. Power soon got the email and contacted Mugumira immediately to arrange to collect his laptop from Mugumira’s house later on Thursday.

Mugumira, who has been in South Africa for two years, says that before becoming a taxi driver he worked for a number of large companies in Zimbabwe and knew that “the value of all the work” on the laptop “was worth a lot more than the laptop itself”. Power says that it would have been understandable if Mugumira, who earns around R450 per week, had been tempted to sell the laptop, worth R20,000 on the black market. Mugumira did not ask for any money in return for the laptop. He says, however, that Power was “very grateful” to him for returning it.

Power says that the happy end to the story comes from the notable combination of “the sharpness and awareness of the waitress, the bravery of the public and the incredible honesty of the driver”.

The two perpetrators were due to appear in court on Friday.