Angella Johnson
The young tracker was apologetic. “You wouldn’t believe it. Last Friday we recovered seven stolen cars, today not one live one.”
Cruising at a cool 200km/h about 2 000m above some of Johannesburg’s crime spots, we were on the lookout for two vehicles stolen in the Johannesburg area over the weekend.
I had been promised car chases, dramatic airswoops and maybe even a shootout or two. “It can get pretty hairy out there,” Lorenzo Stoger had warned, as we climbed into the four-seater helicopter with Shiva Comaren, the pilot.
The problem was that the missing vehicles had been stolen over the weekend and only reported by the owners on Monday morning. “They could already be cruising around Mozambique with false number plates,” Stoger suggested.
But he had reason to be hopeful for a full recovery. The tracking company claims a 90% recovery rate in an average time of 40 minutes for vehicles carrying its hi-tech tracking equipment.
But the vehicle must be reported to their 24-hour control room in Midrand soon after it has been taken.”Our success-rate is reliant on a speedy response from clients,” said Stoger.
“That way we can catch them before they leave Gauteng, which is our signal radius. If the customer doesn’t inform us before the vehicle goes out of the Gauteng area then there is nothing we can do.”
Though occasionally the crooks lay low outside the area before sticking their heads out again. “Then we pick up the signal,” Stoger added.
Netstar, one of several companies thriving in the surge of car hijacking, prides itself on recapturing vehicles undamaged because of its quick recovery time.
As a result of the company’s speedy search and recovery operation, the police have arrested more than 200 people and busted a number of chop-shop syndicates.
Marketing manager Basil Papalexis thinks this has forced the thieves to change their modus operandi. “Now they hide the vehicle for a while before taking it to the shop to be stripped.”
In its two years of operating, Netstar has recovered about 870 vehicles valued at about R90-million for their clients, plus a further 300 without tracking which were in the syndicates’ possession.
“Often a vehicle is taken and recovered before the person even realises that it is missing,” said Papelexis.
He says insurance companies usually recover only 15% of stolen vehicles, so some now offer incentives for their customers to install tracking.
The device, which is about the size of a packet of 30 cigarettes, is proving to be a valuable crime- fighting tool and Netstar has over 22 000 subscribers. Subscribers pay R2 800 for installation plus R85 per month (there is no extra recovery fee).
Papalexis thinks secrecy is one of the reasons for continued success. Owners are not told where the tracking is hidden and each batch of devices is designed differently.
`We randomly place [devices] in different places in the vehicles. But [it is] most important to hide them because the syndicates very quickly learn where to look.” Even the antenna and optional panic button is hidden from view.
While most of the clients are owners of expensive commercial and private vehicles, Netstar does have one VW Beetle on its network. “It cost R2 000 (more than the cost of the car) but the subscriber wanted his daughter to have roadside recovery.”
Netstar subcontracts a helicopter firm, a private armed-response company, but also alerts the police, flying squad and traffic department to track and recover.
Most of the losses are commercial vehicles or company cars which have been left over the weekend.
The business has flourished in Gauteng, which has one-third of the vehicles registered in South Africa. About 75% of all the country’s hijackings occur in this province.
But now Netstar is planning to go national. Durban, Pietermaritzburg and Cape Town are expected to be linked up in the near future.
The sophisticated electronics system that makes tracking possible uses radio transmitters and receivers, and is linked to a computer network. The silent signal is either activated manually by the owner with an alarm key or by the 24-hour control centre once a theft has been reported.
If anyone breaks into a vehicle that has the tracking system fitted, or tries to tow it away, a siren goes off and the transmitter sends out a silent signal which is picked up. Should the driver be the victim of a hijacking, he can either press a panic button or phone Netstar who will activate the signal.
At the control centre, the alert appears on a computer screen with details of the car, owner (including contact numbers) and a detailed road map, showing the proximity of the vehicle.
At this point a tracker is sent up in a helicopter with a receiver to pick up the signal and direct ground operations.
But on this occasion after two hours flying over various Johannesburg suburbs, the tracker is unlucky.
“Looks like those missing cars have already left the area,” said Stoger. That is the weakness of the system. Only by receiving a quick report can the vehicle be tracked.