Swapna Prabhakaran
Mysterious men flashing police badges and driving police vans have ambushed S Nkosi twice in four months, taking his money before setting him free. He has fallen victim to a widening extortion racket that sources say is sweeping through South African cities.
Last Tuesday was payday for Nkosi. He was stopped by two men claiming to be plainclothes police. They flashed their police badges at him and asked him to produce his identity document. The men claimed his document was forged, pocketed it and bundled Nkosi into a yellow police van.
There were over a dozen people in the van, all of whom had been similarly picked up off the street. “The men parked the van outside John Vorster Square. They said if we didn’t give them money they would arrest us. Some people gave them R100 or R200,” Nkosi says. “I had R400 and they just took it.”
Then they returned his identity book to him, and told him he could go. Nkosi, originally from Zimbabwe, says he thinks they picked him up because his inoculation marks -on a different part of his arm from most South Africans – identified him as a foreigner. His colleague Abel Sibeko, originally from Mozambique,had a similar experience.
An undercover investigating officer for the Anti-Corruption Unit of the South African Police Service (SAPS) says this kind of extortion has often been exposed within the SAPS before.
says the same thing has happened to him three times. Exposing the tetanus inoculation scar on his shoulder, Sibeko says: “I left Mozambique 10 years ago, but the `ant-bites’ are here on my arm.” Sibeko says the men claiming to be police looked at his arm before detaining him.
He says: “They made me draw money from the bank to give to them. I drew R150, and they said, `that’s not enough’. So I drew another R150 and they let me go.”
Neither is certain whether the men who detained them are real policemen.
The Anti-Corruption Unit of the South African Police Service (SAPS) is unable to help unless the victims – like Nkosi and Sebeko – can supply van registration numbers, or officers’ names and serial numbers.
He encourages the public to phone the unit to report crimes like this, and to make a statement with the police immediately.
“We can assure the victims a 100% guarantee that where anti-corruption is involved, we don’t stop investigating until we find the truth. Even if it takes seven years, we don’t stop,” the officer said.
Nkosi feels distrust for the police. He does not believe they can help him, despite the assurances. He did not want his first name published or his photograph taken as he fears revenge attacks.
“I don’t think I’ll get my money back.
It’s lost, lost. Only God can punish those men now.”
Captain Sipho Ngubane, a SAPS representative, says Sebeko should have reported to Crime Stop the first time the crime happened. “I fail to understand why he kept giving these men his money. He is now also partly to blame for the corruption. He should have called Crime Stop and we could have set a trap for those people. The Anti-Corruption Unit cannot operate without the public’s awareness and help.”