Time to hammer down
Malls beef up fight against criminals
BUSINESSES are saying enough is enough and taking action to prevent the “hammer gang” from striking yet again.
A standardised CCTV footage system, a centralised means of sharing vital information, camera room staff training and the further rolling out of licence plate recognition software at centres across the city were just some of the solutions discussed at a meeting involving police, Business Against Crime (BAC), the Consumer Goods Council (CGC), shopping mall management and private security companies.
At the meeting, hosted yesterday at the Olive Convention Centre, stakeholders committed to taking back malls across the city from the hands of criminals.
Since January, there has been a spate of robberies at cellphone, jewellery and clothing stores at various malls.
In the latest attack at a Hillcrest mall, the notorious hammer gang smashed through the windows of a jewellery shop before making off with loot. According to Andreas Mathios of Blue Security, the gang of three entered the shopping centre in Old Main Road just after 7pm on Sunday.
The various stakeholders met yesterday to list their grievances and also to work towards finding a solution that will curb the number of mall robberies.
Abie Nelson, head of risk at the CGC, said KwaZulu-Natal had the second-highest number of retail and jewellery robberies at shopping malls in the country.
“This is a problem that we cannot avoid. Gauteng has the highest number and, with this meeting between the stakeholders, we hope to come up with a tangible solution. In the past, each entity was trying on its own. We were working past each other. Now we need to come together,” he said.
Nelson said in recent months jewellery and cellphone shops had borne the brunt of the robberies. Of the robbery investigations, only two yielded somewhat positive results with items being recovered and arrests effected.
Addressing the large group, SAPS General Bala Naidoo said the police had identified the problem areas and, in a bid to tackle the matter, additional high-powered cars had been issued to the Trio Crimes Unit.
“We have clusters that have their own teams and their own cars to address this issue. From a reactive point, there is a task team that has been set up to investigate these robberies, not only at provincial level, but also at cluster level across clusters. There has been tremendous success in this regard,” he said.
Naidoo lamented the dissemination of vital evidence being leaked on social media.
He said people were sharing CCTV footage of mall robberies and photographs of suspected criminals via WhatsApp groups and Facebook, with this often having a negative impact on investigations.
“Someone comes to you and you give them the video in good faith, but they share it via social media and on these WhatsApp groups.
“Important information is shared and then the matter of video tampering comes into play and these cases can get thrown out of court. What you must also note is that investigations are taken over at top levels and there are specialist prosecutors for high-profile cases and mall robberies,” said Naidoo.
He called on all forces to join hands and work together to eradicate the scourge of mall robberies.
Echoing Naidoo’s sentiment, Nelson added that mall management and shop owners must support local war rooms and share information immediately with police to help with response times and getting pertinent information from security guards.
“We are also looking at a standardised CCTV footage system so that all videos have better quality and we can better identify suspects. We will also be centralising information so that it gets to the right channels. We will be engaging with store owners, like we have done in Gauteng, to show camera room employees what they need to be looking out for in terms of suspicious people or modus operandi,” he said.
Speaking on behalf of BAC, Naeem Rahiman said they were confident that a solution would be found. He added that this was just a start in their plan to fight crime at malls.