- A pot plant thief was captured on CCTV camera loading a stolen pot into the boot of his car.
- The owner, Elsabet Basson, posted the video on social media and managed to track down the stolen.
- Police are investigating the matter.
Police are investigating a case of theft after a woman's pot plant was stolen from a business premises in Paarl last week.
The not-so-sneaky thief was caught on CCTV camera loading the large pot into the boot of his car.
The owner arrived at work to find the soil and the plant from inside the pot tipped into a heap, lying in the driveway.
But a post about the incident circulated on social media, and the pot plant was later found at a shop.
"It was just so weird. I looked around me thinking someone must have driven into it and maybe picked up the pieces, but there was nobody around," said Elsabet Basson, owner of Elsabet Touch, a clinical skin consultation - where the incident took place.
When she opened the app, linked to the surveillance cameras monitoring the property, she discovered what had really happened.
"And there I saw it," she said. "Obviously this guy steals stuff and then sells it."
Basson posted the video to Facebook to show her friends how "funny" and "ridiculous" the incident was, she said.
"We got a lot of responses from our community... People even called from Gauteng," she said.
Happy reunion
Social media sleuths helped Basson to identify the perpetrator and trace the whereabouts of the pot.
"We even discovered who the person was but we've left that to the police to handle," she said.
"I feel really bad for the family and I tried to put the post onto private but it had already been shared across platforms," she said.
Basson received a phone call from a woman who spotted the video on social media. She said the pot had been delivered to a shop in Belville.
"It just shows the power of social media," she said.
"A lady saw the video on Facebook and while she was in her car she just happened to see the pot."
Basson then got in touch with the owner of the shop who confirmed it was there. The police collected the pot and returned it to Basson on Thursday.
"The shop owner was really shocked, he said they are usually very strict with people bringing in items," she said.
The Western Cape Police Service confirmed they are investigating the matter and the suspect is yet to be arrested.
"The identity of the complainant cannot be confirmed or released by this office," said Colonel Andrè Traut, provincial commander of media communication.