A festival of heists
They came, they saw, they took the money. It is as simple as that. No weapon fired. No fatality. Only two causalities - the money and reputation of the security company! That is the ‘ simple’ story of the festival of cash- in- transit heists we are currently experiencing.
The simplicity at which these criminals carry out these heists leaves a lot to be desired. It may even tempt one to think, they are enabled.
Anyway, my opinion on that is best delivered by the Gospel of Mathew, “Therefore do not fear them. For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known”.
Although these heists prove to be a telling symptom of security structures in disarray, it does not take away the fact that Botswana has gone on to produce some of the ‘ finest’ criminals in this sector.
Let us take it from the top. Boom! A brazen daylight cash- in- transit heist happens on Atlas Road in Boksburg, Gauteng. The robbers blow up two G4S cash vans and flee with an undisclosed amount of money.
A few days later, the no- nonsense South African Minister of Police, Bheki Cele confirms the arrest of the suspects. Leading among them are two Batswana young men Thato ‘ The Bomber’ Gaopatwe and Calvin ‘ Boze’ Molete.
Cele publicly acknowledged that the duo’s expertise in bomb- making, improvised explosive devices ( IEDs) and blasting, made them darlings of South Africa’s highly competitive criminal sector.
The exponential growth of violent crimes, particularly armed robberies, is without doubt, likely to cause anxiety in the business climate in the country. Besides causing an uncertain investment climate, these unabated heists leave the country looking like a violent banana republic.
They make us look like a violent nation, whereas we are not. As it stands, there are many more questions than answers to the situation.
Others are questioning if our law enforcement agencies are resourced enough to deal with such sophisticated organised gangs, while on the other side of the equation others are questioning the competency of our intelligence services.
The pattern that is emerging from the recent spate of armed robberies clearly shows a high level of syndicated planning and masterful execution from the criminal gangs.
It also tells us a bit about their professional ethos, that is, we are dealing with a group of professional criminals who know their job like the back of their hands.
As crime spirals out of control, one cannot help but wonder what has happened to Botswana Police Service. Surely, they are struggling to keep up pace not only with the volume of crime but also its diversity and complexity.
However, the challenges are multi- faceted, multi- layered, and may include issues of logistics, low- morale, deplorable working conditions, and old policing strategies based on being reactive rather than being proactive, we also need to scrutinise our criminal intelligence apparatus.
We can also read from their targets, tactics, and timing that they do a lot of intelligence gathering including surveillance on the target before attempting any robbery.
This then leads us to one question, what is our intelligence apparatus doing to counter their activities? If we are to use the current statistics of armed robberies, we would then have to conclude that they are so far not only losing the battle on the streets but also public confidence.
The dearth of human intelligence ( HUMINT), particularly the lack of intelligence assets within organised crime syndicates, is making fighting organised crime a futile exercise.
The general neglect of HUMIT in preference for Signal Intelligence ( SIGINT) which includes among other things communication interception, is compounding the problem as criminals are very much aware of the vulnerability of such modes of communication.