[imagesource: TimesLIVE]

One morning in November 2018, six robbers strolled into an exclusive sneaker shop in Rosebank, Johannesburg, tied the shopkeepers up with cable ties, threatened them with a gun, and packed bags full of shoes, which they soon drove off with.

Amidst the bags of shoes was one of the rarest sneakers in the world.

Just one shoe from a pair, that is.

The sneakers in question are Nike Freddy Krueger SB Dunks, inspired by the horror movie Nightmare on Elm Street.

The shoe is still missing and since the police were unable to locate the culprits, the dossier was closed after just four months, reports TimesLIVE.

But newly surfaced CCTV footage from the store on the day could open up the investigation again.

The shop called Court Order (ironic) had borrowed the rare pair of size nine shoes from tennis coach Brandon Ebersey, 27, as part of its opening display, according to BCPS investigator Abel Roman.

Ebersey is an avid sneaker collector and bought the Freddy Kruegers five years ago in a deal with a collector overseas who had advertised them on Instagram for $3 000 (almost R50 000).

Now Ebersey is left with just the right-hand shoe, which is completely worthless alone.

More on the backstory of the shoes:

The sneakers, produced in 2007, featured the same red and green stripes as the sweater worn by the Freddy Krueger character in Nightmare on Elm Street and were decorated with imitation blood spatter.

But production was halted at the last minute after the producers of the horror-film franchise, New Line Cinema, threatened Nike with legal action over breach of copyright.

“Nike had to can the manufacturing but by that time they had already sent off some shipments so they had to recall all of them and had to destroy them. They had to build a big pile, throw diesel and burn them,” said Roman.

“But in the course of that process, a few came out. Nobody knows how many.”

Roman also mentioned that the robbery at Court Order was “well-coordinated and professionally executed”:

“They took high-value sneakers but nowhere near the [value of the] Freddy Kruegers, but they only took one, which makes it worthless. The big mystery is: where is the sneaker?”

Investigators only recently unearthed the previously overlooked hard drive on which CCTV footage of the robbery was stored, so the investigation should commence.

Plus, Basileus Consilium Professional Services (BCPS), a company that specialises in probing cybercrime, has also joined the hunt for the robbers.

Wesley Masangwani, Roman’s colleague, said the faces of the six culprits are visible enough to try and make an ID.

This video shows the CCTV footage of the moment the robbers put the one rare shoe into a bag and took off with it:

Now, the average price paid for this pair of shoes on StockX is just over $26 000 (about R350 000).

[source:timeslive]