A spike in violent crime and the renewed international focus on crime in South Africa ahead of the 2010 Football World Cup has sparked a flurry of activity by the country’s law and order authorities.
Insurance experts believe an additional possible factor in the crime rise was the 11-week strike by security guards.
This week in Gauteng, the site of 80% of all retail robberies, minister of community safety Firoz Cachalia unveiled a six-month plan to crackdown on crime.
This came hard on the heels of last week’s statement by Minister of Security and Safety Charles Nqakula that his department would launch a six-month national offensive against crime, which he said was again on the rise.
Nqakula’s comments flowed from a strategic meeting with key police managers that highlighted a spike in serious and violent crimes in several provinces, especially Gauteng.
The growing daring of armed robbers was highlighted by Thursday’s heist of an undisclosed amount of money from a chartered aircraft on the airstrip at the Bloemfontein airport. Another cash in transit robbery was reported from outside East London.
National and provincial police spokespersons will not release statistics, saying this year’s crime figures will be included in the South African Police Service’s annual report in September.
However, Mail & Guardian questions to insurance agencies, industry associations that monitor crime and community policing forum leaders this week revealed that:
- There were 135 cash-in-transit robberies in the first five months of this year — an increase in the monthly average from 20,2 in 2005 to 27;
- Armed supermarket robberies have increased across South Africa, according to the Consumer Goods Council. Eighty percent of these crimes now take place in Gauteng, compared with 65% in the first eight months of last year;
- Car hijacking increased by between 30% and 40% between March and June this year, according to Anton Botha, Hollard Insurance’s general manager of specialised claims services;
- Hollard recorded an unexpected 10% to 15% jump in house burglaries between March and June; and
- The epicentre of Gauteng’s violent crime is Pretoria, the West Rand and Johannesburg. It is apparently down in Soweto and the North Rand.
Hollard reported an emerging pattern of combined hijacking and house burglary this year. “In the past hijackers would just take the car and not rob the house. Now there is an increase in incidents of simultaneous hijack and house robbery,” Botha said.
He added that Hollard had developed a theory that the increase in certain crimes was correlated with the three-month security strike. Statistics over the next few months would indicate whether this was a tenable theory, he said.
Angelo Haggiyannes, a director at Auto & General Insurance noted an upward trend in hijackings, which had been “pretty constant” over the previous three years.
Haggiyannes declined to give the actual figures, saying they could mislead.
Other reports based on insurance information indicate that aggravated car robberies have increased to 2003 levels, after declining steadily between May 2003 and November 2005.
One reason offered for the hijacking rise is that the diversification of organised crime has stretched police staff and resources and distracted dedicated hijacking personnel. The lack of a focus had meant fewer successful hijacking prosecutions.
Vivienne Pearson, of the South African Insurance Association, cautioned that insurance company information might lag crime trends because people did not always claim immediately.
Another source said insurance company databases might not fully capture incidents of crime because the criminal aspect of a claim might not be pertinent to its actuarial assessment.
The Consumer Council notes a “definite increase” in trends in armed robberies in supermarkets across South Africa. Its spokesperson, Michael Broughton, said that robbery had cost the retail trade R5,5-million in the first five months of this year.
According to Sechaba Khumalo, chairperson of the Soweto community policing forum and secretary of the Gauteng community policing forum, cash-in-transit crime, house-breaking and business robbery are of greater concern in Johannesburg than in Soweto. School break-ins were a bigger problem in the townships, while Soweto had seen an increase in computer theft over the past year.
Murder rates have increased over the past year in Alexander township, according to Thomas Sithole, the chair of Alexander’s community policing forum. House break-ins, rape and theft had decreased in the area, he said.
While Gauteng has most robberies, most murders and other personal violence take place in the Western and Northern Cape, said Antoinette Louw of the Institute for Security Studies.
Good cop, bad cop
South Africans are asking how they can distinguish fake police from the real McCoy after a Sandton couple were robbed and sexually assaulted in their security complex this week by robbers acting as Metro police officers, writes Yolandi Groenewald.
Four men, three disguised as policemen and the fourth a “suspect” in tow, gained entry into the Sandton home of Susan and Harris Adler, pretending to be investigators of a burglary the couple reported last year. The men had a Volkswagen Golf with police plates linked to the Hillbrow police station.
Also this week, two employees of a transport company were hijacked in Johannesburg by criminals kitted out like Metro police officers. Two men stole the bakkie and cigarettes worth R240Â 000. The owner of the Vanderbijlpark company, Danie van Rooyen, told Beeld he was also almost hijacked by men in police uniform two months ago.
Johannesburg police spokesperson Superintendent Chris Wilken insists that criminals posing as police officers is not common, but there have been a number of similar incidents in the past years.
The infamous “blue light gang”, which operated near Johannesburg International airport a couple of years ago, impersonated police officers, pulling over cars and robbing their victims. And in February, six armed men pretending to be policemen held up an elderly couple.
“Obviously we are taking this incident very seriously and are very concerned about it,” said Wilken of the Adler incident. “It breeds distrust between the police and the public.”
He said vigilant South Africans need not be fooled. The secret is always to check for the necessary insignia, whether it appears on cars or uniforms, and to ask for identification.
According to Wilken if any suspicions exist about whether a uniformed person knocking at your door is indeed the local friendly police officer, an appointment certificate should be asked for.
“Police members are required to carry this card at all times,” he said, describing the certificate as being the size of a credit card.
The certificate has a photo of the police officer on the front, together with his or her name. On the back of the card is the officer’s force number and ID number. A watermark is visible on the front in the form of an aloe plant with small aloes in the centre.
Wilken said that if members of the public still had doubts, they should phone the nearest police station.
“Our uniforms are also clearly marked,” he said. “To get a blue uniform is not a problem. It is the insignia that differentiates the uniform.”
He said in the case of the Sandton robbers the perpetrators were not wearing uniforms, simply bulletproof vests.
The robbers’ car, even though it had a police number plate, was not marked with police emblems.
“Our cars are clearly marked with lights and sirens,” he said. “While it is easy for any criminal to fake a number plate, faking the markings on a car together with the number indicating its police station, is much more difficult.”
It is illegal for any member of the public to own a blue light and the police will act against people who abuse these lights, Wilken said. But he added that it was not ideal for people to run away from police and “run red lights”, when asked to pull over. If there is any doubt drivers should go to their nearest police station. No arrests have been made.