The surge in kidnappings in South Africa, with more than 3 600 recorded over a three-month period, according to the latest police crime statistics, is spurring a demand for insurance against this crime, according to security and financial experts.
High-profile kidnappings — such as the abduction of Liverpool football striker Luis Diaz’s father by members of a military group in Columbia who released him on 9 November — tend to grab the headlines. But kidnappings are a growing threat to ordinary high-wealth individuals, not only abroad, but locally.
Experts say that, in South Africa, small-time kidnappers are learning from international syndicates that have entered the country.
They spend time surveying their victims — usually affluent business people — often for weeks, before swooping, with the motive of turning a high profit at relatively low risk.
According to the most recent crime statistics, 3 641 cases of kidnapping were registered from April to June, an average of 40 kidnappings a day. This represents a 10.2% year-on-year increase from 3 306 cases during the same period last year.
A report by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) says during the nine months from April to December last year, the police recorded 11 702 kidnappings, surpassing the figure of 10 826 for the longer period of March 2021 to April last year.
In the past 10 years, kidnappings rose 183% from 3 832 in 2012-13 to 10 826 in 2021-22, according to the ISS, due to the substantial growth of violent and organised crime.
The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime’s Strategic Organised Crime Risk Assessment South Africa 2022 report said kidnapping for ransom had soared since 2016, due to foreign syndicates shifting operations to the country, and local groups mimicking their modus operandi, but targeting South Africans.
“Pakistani networks have been a growing phenomenon in Southern Africa in recent years and are particularly engaged in the drugs trade and organised kidnapping,” the report noted.
“Franchisees join established business people from the South Asian diaspora, some of whom are suspected to be players in the regional drug trade.
“These business people pay local gangs in order to operate and charge the newly arrived franchisees for the cost of protection.
“Pakistani syndicates also engage in kidnapping, often in co-ordination with networks in Pakistan: the South African syndicate may kidnap a pre-identified victim of wealth and social standing, and the Pakistan syndicate may extort their family based in Pakistan.
“Bangladeshi kidnapping syndicates in South Africa have used a similar approach.
“Established kidnapping syndicates in Mozambique have also moved to South Africa, driving a spate of sophisticated kidnappings since 2016.”
The institute said before this, kidnapping for ransom was not prevalent in South Africa, indicating that these groups had seen a gap in the market and their approach had since been copied by local groups.
“These kidnapping syndicates made use of the intelligence-gathering and operational skills they acquired in Mozambique to target high-worth individuals, usually fellow nationals.”
Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga saw the highest number of kidnappings, although the crime was reported in all nine provinces in the first quarter of this year.
Gauteng’s top five high-risk areas were Vosloorus, Tembisa, Midrand, Protea and Orange Farm, while KwaZulu-Natal’s hotspots were Umlazi, Inanda, Durban Central, Pinetown and Ntuzuma.
Wahl Bartmann, the chief executive of Fidelity Services Group, which provides specialist tactical intervention and reinforcement teams to manage this high-risk crime, said this week the increasing number of kidnappings was largely driven by economic factors and organised criminal syndicates, mainly targeting high-net-worth business people for financial gain.
“An increasingly prevalent trend in recent times is ‘express kidnappings’ (so called because the victims are held for a brief time period) where motorists are hijacked and driven in their own vehicle or another vehicle to an ATM and forced to withdraw cash. They are then also robbed of valuables before being left at an isolated location,” Bartmann said.
Human trafficking, particularly the abduction of women and children, is also a “pervasive issue”, he said, adding: “In fact, it is more prevalent in ‘quiet suburbia’ than many residents would like to acknowledge.”
South Africa is an “attractive destination” for organised criminal syndicates involved in kidnapping due to its porous borders, weak policing and governance as well as corruption, University of Cape Town Centre of Criminology senior researcher Simon Howell said.
He also noted that local copycat groups had learned from international syndicates which had set up organised criminal operations in the country and that, while South Africa did not have kidnapping levels as high as countries such as Colombia, incidents were rising in line with the surge in crimes of all categories.
“Kidnappings used to be isolated to very important people but now we are moving down to local business people — anyone who can pay a ransom,” Howell said.
“It is a crime that is economically driven and it is a good payoff for a relatively low risk, depending on who you kidnap.”
Kidnappers spend a lot of time surveying their potential victims, Howell added.
“They conduct high levels of surveillance and contextual research and they look for the movement and behaviour patterns of the individual.
“They look for weak points in the activities of the individual, places where they drive alone and it will be easiest to abduct them.
“Obviously, businesses in high-crime areas also present a higher risk of kidnapping.”
In line with the rising risk of kidnapping has been a growing trend of people looking to buy “kidnapping insurance” from financial services providers.
Trum Africa director Murray Corbett said it is difficult to estimate the number of kidnappings for ransom as these were often not reported as such because the abductors set the rules to keep people quiet.
“However, it is estimated in South Africa that these numbers are about 75 cases per quarter.
“[One of the] factors driving the increase is easy money and it is suspected that foreign groups that are experienced in this have established themselves in South Africa,” he said.
“It is a fast and organised way to receive funds in the form of cash.
“Either by standard kidnapping or express kidnapping — when they keep a person for a few hours and get them to draw cash from ATM machines — normally for just two days, so they can withdraw two maximum amounts.
“Virtual kidnapping is when, for example, you are flying in an aeroplane (not contactable) and they contact relatives and demand instant cash for your release. As you can’t be contacted, the ransom is paid and, when you land, you discover that it was just a scam,” Corbett said.
He said there were a few firms in South Africa providing insurance against kidnapping and there had been a “drastic increase” in demand for new policies both in the country, the rest of Africa and globally.
In many African countries, kidnappers tended to target business or tourist visitors, Corbett added.
Insured events can include kidnapping, extortion, hijacking, illegal detention, mysterious disappearance, threat response, hostage crisis, virtual kidnap, business interruption, child abduction and emergency political repatriation.
The cost of these policies is estimated to range from R4 500 to R8 000 a year for R500 000 and R1 million cover, respectively, to R60 000 per annum for R10 million cover. The premium for $5 million cover is $8 500 per year.
“How the policy works is that once a person is kidnapped, the response service will be notified and they will set up an operation centre to deal with the kidnappers. It is the responsibility of the person contacted (the family member) to deal with the kidnappers but under strict guidance of the response team,” Corbett said.
“The ransom needs to be collected by the family member. The policy only provides for reimbursement of funds paid.”
The survival rate in kidnapping for ransom when the victim is insured is “extremely high — almost 100%”.
“The kidnappers are generally a professional outfit and it is treated as a business transaction.”