Massive spike in cash-in-transit heists

SAPS briefed the Parliament’s portfolio committee on police on Tuesday on the 2017/18 crime statistics.

"Robbery of cash-in-transit the highest point was in 2008/9 and then we reached the lowest point in 2014/15 but unfortunately since then this crime has increased for three consecutive years," said Major General Norman Sekhukhune.

Sekhukhune told MPs that the heists mostly occurred on the road.

"Most of the CIT's happen on the road, business areas and 40 of them were in Spaza shops and malls. The robberies that happened on the road, 55 explosives were used in 55 incidents and firearms were used in 29 incidents.”

The University of South Africa’s Professor Rudolph Zinn, who has studied these type of robberies over the past five years, says the modus operandi used by criminals has not changed.

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"In all of the studies we have done with incarcerated offenders on robbery including CITs, is that the majority of the modus operandi stays the same but there may be new technology that they would use in committing their crime as new technologies become available.

"But the basics are the same how they go about in target sections, the planning they put in it before the time and the way that they recruit their members. And that is an interesting point we found is that it's not really syndicate driven but it is network driven," he says.

Zinn adds that convicts normally come together to commit a common crime.

"In the networks you find that these are people who have specialised skills, they are living throughout the country. But when somebody would identify a possible target, a person who is the leader of the group will resource whoever he would need as far as the skills are concerned, commit that specific crime and then they would disband again and in the next crime they would collect somebody new in terms of skills. It's a network of criminals with specialised skills that are utilised as per incident.”