An unnamed Johannesburg resident was robbed, kidnapped, and stuffed into the back of car on Sunday – but managed to send a text to his girlfriend, Lynn Peters who promptly posted a plea for help on Twitter. Frantic retweeting led to a Twitter-coordinated search by private security companies, who retrieved both the car and Peters’ boyfriend.

At around 21h00 in northwest JHB, two armed men had grabbed the driver and his Volkswagen Golf. Peters, on receiving her boyfriend’s distress message, immediately tweeted:

Be on the look for DSS041GP my boyufriend [sic] has just been hijacked and is in the boot please RT.

The message was picked up in short order by 100 000-follower strong roadblock notification service, @Pigspotter. Since they’re followed by a number of private security forces, several search teams were sent out, some of them coordinating via Twitter. The car was first visually identified by @K9 Security, and stopped shortly thereafter at a police roadblock in Ventersberg.

The hijackers ditched the car, and fled on foot – with Peters’ boyfriend being retrieved, unharmed from the Volkswagen’s trunk. No arrests have been made thus far.

Tweeted RigaRescue, a volunteer security group involved in the search said:

Done and dusted ! 🙂 Good ending ! This time ! Sleep tight !

Today’s trending topics are #WhyAreWeSoAngry and #Instagram.

[Source: TCMTA]