South African police spent hours looking for a 43-year-old man reported kidnapped this week, but at the end of a costly seven-hour search across the Johannesburg region, it turned out that the kidnapper and the victim were the same person.
Andre Lottering, an unemployed cabinet maker called his wife on Tuesday, saying he had been hijacked on a freeway outside the city.
Later, someone sent text messages to her mobile phone demanding a ransom of R200 000 rand ($30 000) for her husband.
She alerted police, and a high-powered team of hostage negotiators, anti-hijacking experts and officers from the serious and violent crimes unit were swiftly assembled to find her husband.
Hours later, investigators saw Lottering emerge from a house in Johannesburg’s southern suburbs unharmed, his car in the driveway.
Lottering, like at least three other people in the last 12 months, had ”hijacked” his own car and held himself to ransom.
A newspaper photograph showed him with a bandaged face. He said in court police had beaten him when he tried to escape.
Kidnapping has been under the spotlight in recent weeks following the death of a 21-year-old woman, the daughter of an information technology executive who paid kidnappers a ransom but never saw her alive again.
Her body was found 12 days after she was kidnapped from a parking lot at a private university. The perpetrators remain at large.
”The majority of hijacking and kidnapping cases are real. But even when they are not, police have no choice, we have to treat every case as the real thing,” police spokesperson Senior Superintendent Chris Wilken says.
”I wouldn’t say the number of fraudulent cases is very high, but with the latest this week, it’s four cases in the last year,” he said.
Although police are trained to discern real from fraudulent cases, bogus reports of crimes cost the country’s insurance industry billions of rands every year. About 20% of insurance claims, including claims for hijacked vehicles are thought to be fraudulent.
Louella Rich sparked a massive search that turned out to be a wild goose chase when she sent a series of text messages to her boyfriend claiming she had been hijacked and locked in the boot while her abductors drove her around Johannesburg.
Last month, she was fined R30 000 or three years in jail for defeating the ends of justice with her ”foolish behaviour” apparently aimed at scaring her ”lying boyfriend”.
The case sparked public outrage in a society where the risk of hijacking and violent crime is high. Many people thought she should foot the bill — estimated at around R100 000 — for needlessly burdening the overworked police.
Public sentiment was no different when Paul Beyl, a Pretoria priest with a gambling habit, claimed he had been abducted on returning home from a visit to the casino.
After hearing his car drive off at speed, his wife called police saying she feared he had been hijacked — setting off a massive police search while his congregation prayed for his safe return.
Beyl was sentenced to three years correctional supervision and ordered to undergo rehabilitation for his gambling problems. – Sapa-DPA