Kidnappings in South Africa have sky-rocketed by a staggering 260% over the past decade, according to the Institute of Security Studies.
Researcher, Willem Els, told the Moneyweb at Midday podcast this week that according to the last SAPS quarterly report, there were more than 4500 reported cases which he said translated to about 51 kidnappings per day.
While he noted that Gqeberha was one of the hotspots, following recent incidents, he said there was a more concerning trend regarding overall criminality in Nelson Mandela Bay.
Els said the concern here was the general spike in crime, including incidents of mass shootings and gang violence.
"I think in the [Gqeberha] area it is not only kidnappings for ransom, but we also saw mass shootings that took place [and] we also saw a huge surge in gang violence.
"So it seems that criminality and your criminality levels overall have risen quite considerably in that area," he added.
The Institute for Security Studies also noted that kidnapping gangs have also started to focus on students.
In response to a question on whether the police were rising to this challenge, Els said that if they were, "we wouldn't have seen these cases skyrocketing."
He elaborated: "On the one hand SAPS, Intelligence Services, and most of the other services were targets of State Capture and are slowly recovering from that. It will take some time for them to recover.
"We also saw trust levels between the police and the public are at an all-time low. So, many of your victims do not report it to the police because of this lack of trust and fear that they might be exposed and also because of complicity by some of the police officers that are part of these gangs," Els said.
He urged SAPS to invest and train members to ensure they are at the cutting edge of technology in investigating these cases and also trying to prevent them.
A NEW TREND
National police spokesperson, Brigadier Athlenda Mathe, said the rise in kidnappings, of which there are two types, is a concern for the SAPS.
"There is kidnapping where the motive is to commit another crime, such as robberies, while there are also kidnappings for ransom where the sole purpose is to extort.
"As the police, we picked up this trend back in 2017, and that is why in 2018, we established the anti-kidnapping task team that operates on a national level. We also have competencies at a local level," she said.
Brigadier Mathe said these teams comprise members from counter-intelligence, specialised units, and also detectives working around the clock to crack these syndicates.
"Both crime categories are concerning, but kidnapping for ransom is now worrying as criminals see this as a quick way to make money, and less dangerous than being involved in cash-in-transit heists.
"When we picked up this particular crime it was mostly happening between foreign nationals that come from the same country. At that time, this was happening between them, where they would kidnap each other for money," she told the podcast on Tuesday.
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Brigadier Mathe said as the years went by police noted that South Africans, who might have been initially used by foreign nationals, were getting involved in this type of crime.
"So, it's now becoming a new trend in South Africa. But, what is also concerning is that it is a very highly organised crime and that is why our counter-intelligence is on top of its game in terms of tracing these syndicates," she said.
She noted that syndicates do their research and would target someone who they know is wealthy and would be able to fork out the R5m or more ransom that is being demanded.
She also said police have been able to infiltrate these syndicates and over the past two years arrested more than 250 suspects alleged to be involved in kidnappings for ransom.
Brigadier Mathe appealed to members of the public not to "overshare" information on social media as these syndicates monitor these platforms.
"They want to know what type of house you live in, what type of car do you drive and which schools do your children attend. They use this type of information to plan accordingly," she cautioned.
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Brigadier Mathe said SAPS continues to provide resources to these units involved in investigating kidnappings as "we see there is an increase in this particular crime."
She also noted that SAPS discourages the paying of a ransom, urging the public to report kidnappings immediately to the police.
