Türkiye carries out 1st payments on digital lira network

Türkiye has successfully executed its first payment transactions on the Digital Turkish Lira Network, the Central Bank said.

The bank said it will make the digital lira platform available to selected banks and financial technology companies in 2023, as well as "unveil advanced phases of the pilot study that will further widen the participation."

"Studies on the legal aspects of the Digital Turkish Lira demonstrate that digital identification is of critical importance for the project," read a bank statement.

"Therefore, studies on the economic and legal framework of the Digital Turkish Lira as well as its technological requirements will be prioritized throughout 2023."

From an eight-year-old snatched on her way to school to a wealthy businessman who was abducted and murdered, South Africa is experiencing a surge in kidnappings for money.

During the festive season, police have been warning parents to be vigilant around beaches and shopping malls-potential hotspots for child abduction.

"They should take extra care of their children," said Robert Netshiunda, police spokesman in the southeastern province of KwaZulu-Natal. "Children go missing and a crime of kidnapping is a reality," he told AFP.

South Africa has long had a reputation for violent crime and is often described as one of the most dangerous countries in the world outside a war zone. But kidnapping for ransom or extortion "is comparatively new", noted Jean-Pierre Smith, a Cape Town municipal security councillor.

The phenomenon started to rise in 2016 and is now experiencing explosive growth, according to the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime (GI-TOC), a non-profit. Police recorded more than 4,000 cases between July and September, a two-fold increase on the same period last year.

The number of kidnappings today are "the highest ever in the history of South Africa," anti-crime activist Yusuf Abramjee told AFP. "It has become an established and lucrative criminal practice," GI-TOC said in a report in September.

Last month, the country was stunned when eight-year-old Abirah Dekhta was kidnapped on her way to school near Cape Town by five gunmen in two cars.

Missing-person posters showed a thin girl wearing a pink dress and matching headscarf.

She was freed during a spectacular police raid following a tip-off.

Dekhta had been held in a shack in the impoverished township of Khayelitsha, one of the largest in the country, guarded by seven men, police said. Her captors recently appeared in court, seeking bail.

Most cases of kidnapping in South Africa are a side-effect of carjacking, robberies and rapes.

But, say crime experts, an increasing number of victims are now being targeted directly.

In one of the most high-profile cases, four sons of a South African businessman, aged between six and 15 years, were kidnapped Hollywood-manner while on their way to school. In such cases, ransom demands can run into the millions of rand (tens of thousands of dollars).

Kidnappers sometimes brazenly demand that the ransom be paid into "foreign bank accounts via Bitcoin or via money exchanges in Dubai," said Abramjee.

But in other cases, the victim is simply killed after his bank account has been emptied. One such fatality was Kevin Soal, a businessman in his late 60s with a passion for horse racing.

His luxury car was found abandoned in a township on the outskirts of Pretoria days later.

Soal's body was discovered afterwards in a nearby area with gun wounds police investigators reportedly say were consistent with an execution-style killing.

Large amounts of money had been withdrawn from his account, said a police source.

Police and private detectives are investigating the case.