Cape Town - While Western Cape police intelligence teams are clamping down on syndicates targeting delivery trucks with a cash safe in the back, truck associations are calling for the focus to include bogus cops allegedly attacking long-distance trucks.
About 16 trucks that were hijacked in the past five months have been recovered during police operations.
According to Police Minister Bheki Cele these seized trucks are believed to be worth more than R40 million.
“Intelligence operations have led police in this province to uncover a truckjacking syndicate targeting delivery trucks with a cash safe at the back.
Their modus operandi meant the trucks were intercepted while stationary at a traffic light, the gang would gain entry, stealing the cash inside the safe and dumping the truck in a nearby community; where it is looted by residents for its cargo,” he said.
The incidents have been reported in the Hermanus, Bellville, Gugulethu and Robertson policing areas.
Cele said three accused – Nqobizitha Mbatha, Anele Lokwe and Siyabonga Batala, all under the age of 30 – were answering to the courts for this crime.
He said police also pounced on carjacking syndicates responsible for the theft of vehicles worth millions of rand.
“Two suspects have also been arrested for a spate of carjackings in the Mitchells Plain, Milnerton and Bishop Lavis areas.
The pair targeted courier vehicles in the Milnerton and Table View areas, victims were robbed at gunpoint and the vehicle would be driven away to another location,” Cele said.
However, South African Long Distance Truckers editor Afzal Hamed said there was a syndicate of fake police officers who were attacking large trucks.
Last month the body of a driver was found inside a cargo truck with multiple stab wounds. He was travelling to Cape Town coming from Pietermaritzburg.
“The trucks that have safes broken and emptied are smaller delivery trucks.
Those that deliver products including soft drinks, alcohol and bread. This past month there were two shocking incidents that happened in Du Toitskloof Pass on a mountain pass.
“Drivers go through a lot of trauma, they’re severely assaulted before being dumped in the middle of nowhere, or worse, killed for the load they are ferrying.
“We have asked numerous times with no response from police about blue light brigade and fake cops stopping trucks,” said Hamed.
According to Hamed the perpetrators would be fully dressed in police uniform or wear reflector vests as law enforcement officials do.
“Due to the number of incidents and brutality in the attacks, drivers now refuse to stop and request to be followed to a filling station or somewhere that is not isolated.
“If it’s fake police they normally don't follow and instead drive away but if it is real police they become aggressive and don’t understand why the truck driver is requesting this. We need more visible policing in dangerous and high-risk areas,” he said.
Cape Times