A South African couple were victims of an armed robbery as they were livestreaming Call of Duty: Warzone with a few friends.
The couple, Sterna ‘MSBandit’ Lewis and Mario Engelbrecht, were streaming Warzone with a few friends on a late evening last week. During the stream, a group of four robbers broke into their house, one of which was armed with a firearm [via Pretoria Rekford].
During the armed robbery, the Warzone stream carried on in the background. All of it was caught on the camera of Lewis’s livestream. The robbers can be seen barging into the office and taking off Lewis’s headset. They order both Lewis and Engelbrecht to get onto the floor and “remain calm”. One of the robbers covers Engelbrecht’s face and binds both of them with shoelaces.
Traumatically, the couple had two young children in the house at the time. Lewis said:
“One of them brought our children. My eldest son, who is 12, was quite shocked when he saw us lying on the ground because he thought they had killed us. He shouted at them, ‘what have you done?’ We then told our children we were fine and that they must lie down on the ground with us.”
“I thought they were going to shoot him”
Lewis says she was sure the person who was armed was going to shoot her partner:
“It was a terrible ordeal. You never know whether they are going to shoot you or not. When they covered my husband’s face, I thought they were going to shoot him.”
The intruders intended to steal a bunch of electronics, including two televisions. They packed them all into Lewis’s car and stole the keys.
Fortunately, they weren’t able to get away with most of the goods. The friends that Lewis and Engelbrecht were streaming with sensed something was wrong when they went quiet on the headset. They drove down to the house along with the estate security and heard unfamiliar voices inside.
When the intruders realised they had been sussed, they escaped to the rear of the property with only a phone, car keys, and a couple of watches. The phone and car keys were later retrieved in a nearby field.
The local police force says that it’s currently conducting an investigation into the intrusion. While most of the perpetrators covered their faces, one of them didn’t and was caught directly on the face cam of Lewis’s livestream.
Thankfully, neither the couple nor their children were harmed during the intrusion.
This isn’t the first time that crimes have been caught live on stream. Last month, popular streamer Alinity was forced to call the police after fans turned up outside her house mid-stream.
Featured Image Credit: Activision