Daily MailA dramatic assassination attempt on a man sprayed with bullets by a machine gun hidden behind the rear license plate of a parked car yesterday was foiled by the target’s bulletproof Mercedes.
In scenes which could have been taken straight from James Bond, the vehicle where the weapon was hidden burst into flames straight after opening fire on Radovan Krejcir, a Czech fugitive living in Johannesburg.
South African police say it was a possible attempt on the life of a man who has been linked to underworld figures in his adopted home.
But Mr Krejcir emerged unscathed from yesterday’s dramatic episode, which left his own armoured vehicle peppered with impact marks and shocked observers of South Africa’s criminal underworld.
Nevertheless, the fugitive seemed unperturbed. ‘All my life is like James Bond stuff,’ he said with a chuckle in an interview with Eyewitness News, a South African media outlet. ‘That’s how I live my life.’
The episode is the one of the most outlandish chapters yet in the long saga of the underworld in Johannesburg, where turf battles over drugs, fraud schemes and other spoils often turn deadly.
Lethal modifications to the empty parked car outside Mr Krejcir’s gold and diamonds pawn shop evoked Goldfinger, the James Bond film in which OO7 drives an Aston Martin with gun barrels behind the front indicators.
Photographs of the stolen red VW Polo in Johannesburg show a dozen gun barrels, some of them melted or contorted by the fire that followed the shooting.
About 10 bullets hit the Mr Krejcir’s driver-side window, but he was out of the vehicle at that point, talking on his phone.
The remote-controlled guns had been hidden behind the rear license plate of the empty, parked car, which burst into flames as soon as running out of bullets in the attack yesterday, possibly destroying evidence
Fiction: The method of attack evoked the movie Goldfinger, when James Bond’s Aston Martin was fitted with machine guns in its lights
Mr Krejcir, who was last year sentenced to 11 years in jail in his home country for tax fraud, told local media that he initially thought he was hearing fireworks.
He speculated that someone knew he always parked in the same place, positioned the gun-fitted VW for the hit and then triggered it from a distance.
Security consultant Rory Steyn said on Radio 702 that there could be ‘any number of motives’ for the incident, ranging from an attack on Mr Krejcir to even something he set up himself to appear like an attempt on his life.
Sean Newman, co-author of a book about a murdered strip club owner, said he was in the area at the time and had a close look at the rigged vehicle.
He suggested the skills and planning required for such a job may have come from abroad.
‘It was definitely very sophisticated,’ he said. ‘My first impression was that this was not local.’
A Johannesburg police forensic investigator marks up the damage caused by bullets on Mr Kerjcir’s bulletproof Mercedes Benz as they comb the scene. About 10 bullets hit Mr Krejcir’s driver-side window
Mr Newman’s book, ‘Lolly Jackson: When Fantasy Becomes Reality,’ traces the turbulent career the owner of a chain of South African strip clubs called Teazers who was shot dead in a Johannesburg house near the international airport in 2010.
Cyprus-born George Louca was named as a suspect in Mr Jackson’s killing, and the Supreme Court in Cyprus last week turned down Louca’s effort to avoid extradition to South Africa. No date has been set for his extradition.
Mr Krejcir, an associate of Mr Jackson and Louca, eluded a police raid on his Czech villa in 2005 and turned up in South Africa in 2007, where he has fought extradition attempts. While in South Africa, Mr Krejcir was charged with robbery and insurance fraud in unrelated cases, but the charges were dropped.
In Mr Newman’s book, Mr Krejcir say he is a scapegoat for killings that police have been unable to solve. According to the book, he said he was one of the first people to see Mr Jackson’s body, and described the scene in detail, even suggesting how the killing may have happened.
‘He’s always come across as very respectful and charming in my presence. He’s never threatened me,’ Mr Newman said of Mr Krejcir. ‘I’ve never seen him lose his temper. I’m sure others have.’
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The idiot is learning the hard way that Hollywood gadgets don’t always work in real life. I’m going to guess that his hidden machine guns were a bit too close to the gas tank.
“the vehicle where the weapon was hidden burst into flames straight after opening fire”
This bozo’s more along the lines of Inspector Clouseau than James Bond.
Apparently he had at least enough sense to not be in the car, though.