Game of cops and robbers is being won by the crooks – experts

Despite a drop in cash-in-transit (CIT) heists and retail crimes, a leading security expert says it is too soon to celebrate, since the country’s crime intelligence services are not up to scratch.

Private security company Cash Connect presented its findings on business cash crime yesterday.

Retail-related crimes between February and March this year saw a decline of 7%, while CIT crimes dropped by 23%, compared with the same period last year. The period before Easter usually sees an increase in these crimes.

Security expert Johan Burger said although he was happy to see the CIT industry was seeing improvements, he was reluctant to put too much weight on the results because it did not show the complete picture.

The answer to the country’s crime situation was crime intelligence, but the police service’s crime intelligence unit was not “functioning at the optimal level where it should be”, he said.

“The police’s crime intelligence division must become more efficient at getting hold of information about who the syndicates are.

“Once we know who they are, we can start fighting them and not wait for them to attack first. You need to remove the danger and threat rather than focus on protecting the target. I would like to see that mind-shift happening.

“At the moment the crime intelligence capability of the police is facing a number of difficulties.

“There are pockets of excellence within the crime intelligence unit and there are people trying very hard and achieving some success. But as a division within police, it’s been severely damaged under the previous head, Richard Mdluli, who, for years, was a suspect in a range of alleged criminal activities.

“The new head was appointed last year and is struggling to fix the division. So, even with him as the leader, crime intelligence is still not functioning at the optimal level it should be.

“I think the crime intelligence unit is not capable of effectively dealing with these crime syndicates and that is our weakness,” Burger said. “We need to have a good torch to shine into the darkness, so that we know where the enemy is hidden. And that torch is crime intelligence. We need to fix that.”

“There is more instability in the country; we see it with all the protests, problems within the police service continuing, looming strikes, unions in constant conflict with police management.

“These cases of instability, including political instability, have not improved, so why would the crime situation have improved?”

Burger said the country must stabilise both the security cluster and the justice system before a significant reduction in crime would be seen.

“I expect to see much the same figures when the police release the crime stats later this year,” Burger said.

INFO

Other statistics for March 2017 – February 2018 compared with March 2018 – February 2019 included:

Retail:

• General armed robbery, armed night robbery and burglary: declined by 7%.
• Armed robberies declines by 12%.
• Burglaries declined by 13%.

Fuel industry:

• Armed robbery, armed night robbery, burglary and ATM attacks have declined by 3%.

Liquor industry:

• Armed robbery, armed night robbery, burglary and ATM attacks have increased by 21%.

The private security company Cash Connect also revealed that most retail cash crime incidents occurred in Gauteng (46%) due to a number of factors.

• Cash Connect joint-CEO Richard Phillips said the reason behind it was “maybe because of the close proximity to explosions”.
• He also said it could be because of the large population as currently migration into the province was reportedly 3 000 monthly. Gauteng is followed by the Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal.
• Cash Connect also compared the Easter period statistics from 2017 and 2018 and found a 16% increase in retail robberies and burglaries.
• “Don’t become a statistic when there’s so much expert advice around and make use of the latest technology which has been proven to deter, deflect and defend criminal activity,” Phillips said.
• “The most important and effective way for retailers to decrease risk is by installing an automated retail cash management and payment solution that is robust and can resist the toughest of attacks.”

– jenniffero@citizen.co.za

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