Heists hurting SA economy

DRIVEN BY GREED: SECURITY COMPANIES REELING FROM SPIKE IN NUMBER OF ATTACKS

Perpetrators are protected by communities and not hunted down by police.

Arenewed surge in attacks on armoured trucks that transport vast amounts of money between retailers and banks is hurting South Africa’s economy, given that the bulk of transactions in the country are still conducted in hard cash, industry officials said this week.

Cash-in-transit (CIT) attacks had been on the wane after peaking at 467 in 2006-07, but have spiked higher again over the past year.

Data from the South African Banking Risk Information Centre (Sabric) shows that 278 cash-intransit robberies were reported in 2016, jumping significantly to 378 last year.

To date in 2018, more than 140 attacks have occurred.

Industry officials are reluctant to give the rand value of the money stolen, but it is probably billions of rands, given that there is around R136 billion circulating in cash in South Africa’s economy.

Cash represents about 58% of South Africa’s gross domestic product and 80% to 84% of all transactions are conducted with cash, making the robberies a serious concern, said Richard Phillips, CEO of cash management company Cash Connect.

Three main cash-in-transit companies, SBV, G4S and Fidelity, together execute about 59 500 physical transfers on a daily basis, operating more than 2 000 vehicles, which have come under increasing attack from gangs using sophisticated weapons such as AK-47 rifles and commercial explosives.

“Cash is a critical and important component of our economy and the CIT industry is a critical and important service provider to the national distribution of cash,” Phillips told a forum in Johannesburg.

“It’s so important that if threatened or brought to a stop, we run the risk of bringing the whole economy to a stop.”

Most of the robbers involved in the heists are repeat offenders who usually start out as young petty thieves trying to take care of families. They develop into hardened career criminals driven by greed, said Dr Mahlogonolo Thobane, a senior lecturer at the University of South Africa.

“It’s about cash. In the beginning, the robbers said they were in need of money to fend for their families but as they persist in committing these robberies, it’s not about [needing] money any more, it’s about greed,” said Thobane, who interviewed 40 robbers detained in six correctional centres in Gauteng province for her dissertation.

Very often, these criminals avoid arrest because they are protected by community members who benefit financially from their crimes.

“Communities do know who the cash in transit robbers are. They are just turning a blind eye because they are also benefiting