JOHANNESBURG - “There has been a
significant 49% increase in Cash in Transit attacks for the first eight months
of 2017 when compared to the same period last year,” said the South African Banking
Risk Information Centre (SABRIC) Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Kalyani Pillay.
Pillay said heists were no
longer confined to urban areas only but also occur in rural towns across South Africa.
The provinces that experienced the highest increases in the past eight months
were Western Cape followed by North West and Gauteng.
SABRIC was working closely
with Fidelity and other CIT companies and law enforcement officials to analyse
the crime risk information and jointly come up with strategies and risk
mitigation measures to collectively deal with this crisis.
Wahl Bartmann, Fidelity
Group CEO confirmed that just last week eight to ten armed suspects had gained
access to the Fidelity Vryheid depot making off with millions of Rands. This week he confirmed there were a further two
incidents, one in Brits and one in the Free
State, but both were fortunately
unsuccessful.
“Unfortunately we have seen
a spike in Cash in Transit heists across the country this year and these
incidents exacerbate an already dire situation of attacks on Cash in Transit
vehicles and staff,” said Bartmann.
According to stats compiled
by SABRIC between January 1 and August 31, there have been 232 incidents across
the industry involving various modus operandi, cross-pavement attacks being the
most prevalent.
“We know that syndicates
perpetrating these kinds of crimes are highly skilled and organised. We are
constantly evolving our technology and changing our procedures to ensure we
stay one step ahead of the criminals”.
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“Unfortunately the increase
in crime, coupled with high unemployment is impacting on the number of
robberies and heists. We have also seen a move from urban areas, where we have
clamped down quite substantially, to the more outlying areas as evidenced by
Friday’s attack,” said Bartmann.
Bartmann said consumers to
stay alert, particularly as they move towards the festive season where heists
of this nature typically spike even further. “We know wherever there is money
there is risk and this risk does escalate at certain times of the month and
typically during the latter half of the year”.