In just six months South Africa has seen a 27% decrease in cash-in-transit (CIT) heists. This after police crime statistics in June showed that these attacks had increased by 21,9% during the preceding year.
In the wake of a police operation that saw 11 CIT heist gang members die in a failed robbery in Limpopo on Tuesday, better police intelligence is the chief factor cited for more effective action against these attempts.
Trevor Bloem, spokesperson for the department of safety and security, attributes the decrease in heists to ‘new technology, improved cooperation between the business sector and police, improved intelligence and unequivocal and determined operational responseâ€. He also notes an increased willingness among communities to share information with the police.
The police’s latest heist figures correlate with unpublished figures collected by The South African Banking Risk Information Centre (Sabric), said Johan Burger of the Institute for Security Studies.
‘In terms of intelligence they finally got it right,†he says, agreeing that police successes can be attributed to improved intelligence-gathering capacity through partnerships and a greater operational capacity to respond to this intelligence.
The police’s June analysis of CIT heists showed that ‘a relatively small pool of perpetrators†commits the majority of these crimes. The new statistics show that targeting this pool, made up of ‘experienced perpetratorsâ€, has driven down the numbers of CIT robberies.
‘If the police managed to neutralise a specific syndicate that may have been responsible for a number of attacks, it would have a big impact on the stats,†says Burger.
However, he suggests there is a possible downside: ‘The moment [perpetrators] realise they are being out-thought and outgunned, they may decide to move to bank robberies or something else.â€
The MD of Protea Coin’s asset and transit division, Waal de Waal, attributes the decrease to partnerships between the industry and the SAPS. ‘I think the whole cash industry is playing a huge role by supplying information to the police,†says De Waal. ‘Our stats have come down tremendously, we are hoping that it is going to be a quiet Christmas.â€
Chris de Kock of the Crime Information Analysis Centre says that while there is an increase in CITs in the run-up to the festive season, it peaks around October and November, and then ‘levels off later in the seasonâ€.
De Waal says that Tuesday’s heist attempt showed that the syndicates might be getting more ruthless. There were way too many people in the group (at least 15) to be there merely to overpower the transit van: several must have been there to neutralise any police intervention.
Despite the drama of Tuesday’s events, police figures show that 70% of CITs occur ‘when the security officers were busy collecting money from businesses or carrying the cash to or from armoured vehiclesâ€.
In only 16% of the incidents were CIT vans rammed off the road by other vehicles before perpetrators began shooting at the vans. The police say between two and five perpetrators normally carry out such attacks.
In a book published this year about the social economy of organised crime in South Africa, author Jennifer Irish-Qhobosheane examines the workings of CIT heist networks.
Her research shows that CIT networks are ‘highly organised†and operate with ‘military precisionâ€.
Firepower is a key component in the success of CIT robberies, according to her research. Perpetrators interviewed for the book say the high-powered weaponry used, such as AK-47s, R-4s and R-5s, comes from a number of sources.
These include ‘large stockpiles of weapons†available in Mozambique after its civil war, which are then bartered or sold to South Africa’s criminal networks.
Weapons are also seized from ‘private security guards during heists†or obtained from carjackers and criminals involved in house-breaking. Some weapons also come from police and army stocks.
Irish-Qhobosheane writes that ‘certain police and army personnel hire out their own service weapons at a daily rateâ€. The book also points out that heist networks may borrow or hire weapons from other groups for a fee.
This level of cooperation is not unusual. ‘Although many operate independently, some of these networks overlap and conduct ‘joint operations’ as and when the need arises,†she writes.
