Speaker notes by the National Commissioner, General Riah Phiyega: Cape Town
The Deputy National Commissioners present
Provincial Commissioners and Divisional Commissioners
Senior officers
Members of the news media
I invited you here today because I felt that there is a need to report back to the people of South Africa on the progress we have made in dealing with two areas of crime that have been plaguing us for a while, that is the shopping mall robberies and the hijackings of British American Tobacco vehicles which transport cigarettes. Let me start by saying that we have made great strides and significant progress in this regard. So much so that even this morning the quick response by the police resulted in the arrest of suspects in Baden Powell Drive shortly after they robbed a cigarette delivery truck in Muizenberg.
In Gauteng earlier today, six suspects were arrested by the K9 Unit, after a car chase and shootout, following a robbery of a BAT vehicle in Klerksdorp. One of the suspects was wounded and is presently under guard in hospital. Yesterday in Mpumalanga, the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigations, better known as the Hawks, arrested 8 members of the South African Police Service following their alleged involvement in the illicit trade of cigarettes.
The arrest of these policemen highlights the complexity of the type or crime we are dealing with and our plight as dedicated law enforcers to curbing this crime trend successfully. The members that were arrested hold the ranks of constable and sergeant, the level of police officers that are supposed to be in the forefront of crime fighting and who South Africa is depending on to keep them safe; instead they are alleged to have opted for the life of crime.
Despite this, we shall struggle on valiantly to rid our communities and our police service of the criminal and corrupt elements. We have come across many of our colleagues in blue on the road till this point and - moving forward - we are likely to meet a few more. Not to worry, we have dismissed over 1663 police officers over the past 3 years, including 21 just last month and we shall not hesitate to do the same in the future. The South African Police Service (SAPS) is convinced that the use of task teams in fighting organised crime, in particular syndicates involved in mall robberies and the hijacking of cigarette-delivery vehicles is yielding positive results, with nearly 400 hundred suspects having been arrested countrywide so far.
In response to robbers whose primary targets were shops selling cellular phones and other Information and communications technology (ICT) equipment, I issued instructions for the formation of a multi-disciplinary task team to look into these robberies. A team of detectives, the tactical response teams, undercover police from crime intelligence and external stakeholders whose businesses were adversely affected by these robberies, came together under one roof in the form of a task team.
Since then, more than 30 people belonging to three different gangs, allegedly involved in mall robberies both in the Western Cape and Gauteng, have been arrested and are currently appearing in courts around the country. Firearms and vehicles were also seized. Meanwhile in the business of the delivery of cigarettes, the same scenario was playing itself out. Gangs, which specialised in the hijacking of vehicles delivering cigarettes in Gauteng and elsewhere in the country, were running riot until they were stopped dead in their tracks by our task teams, which were also formed on my instruction.
Since then a total of 359 suspects have been arrested for crimes that were committed as far back as 2013. Apart from saving the affected companies millions of rand in stolen stock and the damage to the country's economy and reputation, the task team also seized as many as 34 motor vehicles, 25 firearms, more than 12 000 cartons of cigarettes and cash. In Limpopo, the task team looking into hijackings targeting cigarette vehicles has notched up significant successes, so much so that since it was formed in mid-2014, 65 suspects have been arrested.
Ten of the arrested were found to have been from Gauteng, hence the task teams are continuously exchanging notes with their counterparts from wherever these hijackings are taking place. One remarkable triumph was that, after three suspects were arrested in the Ga Mashashane area in Limpopo, incidents of this nature decreased dramatically. It was found that one of the three suspects, Simosakhe Magwaza, originally from KwaZulu-Natal but with an address in Soweto, was also linked to a staggering 31 cases committed in Gauteng, Mpumalanga and North West. That is over and above the crime spree they committed in Limpopo.
Another suspect, NR Matjila, has been linked to 10 cases in Limpopo. We have also arrested several police officers in this province for their involvement in illicit cigarette smuggling. What the SAPS finds encouraging is that in most of the cases bail was denied, so the likelihood of someone absconding has been minimised. Part of the reason we managed to arrest and disrupt the activities of these syndicates lies in the use of task teams, the advantage being that all the needed expertise is housed under one roof.
We work with all the relevant units of the SAPS, the National Prosecuting Authority, and the affected stakeholders. So in a nutshell all the required expertise is across the table rather than across town. And secondly we find the concept of partnership policing handy in assisting us in the fight against crime. We recognise the fact that the SAPS cannot possess all the expertise needed and hence we have made partnership policing one of the hallmarks of SAPS management. We encourage the communities from all over South Africa to engage with the SAPS through community policing forums.
We have also entered into memoranda of understanding with different role players, in the business, government and nongovernmental organisational sectors. We want to have the faces of criminals splashed out on televisions, and therefore entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC). We also intend to keep the lines of communication with shopping mall owners open, that is why we managed to bring the robbers to book, to mention but a few. The SAPS will, however, deal with each and every crime pattern differently after weighing all the options at our disposal. We will adopt and implement strategies we feel will be best suited to deal with the different crimes decisively.
I thank you
