RISE in crime against business has drawn attention to the ability of police intelligence to keep pace with sophisticated syndicates.
Police Minister Nkosinathi Nhleko and national police commissioner Riah Phiyega released the 2013-14 crime statistics last Friday, revealing that nonresidential (business) robberies have almost doubled in the past decade.
While commercial crime increased 46.7% over the previous decade, there was a 13.6% decrease in these crimes in the year ending March. But there was a massive spike of 31.5% in robberies at business premises in the Northern Cape in the reporting period.
Gen Phiyega and Mr Nhleko cite their relationship with business as a benchmark as they call for society’ s involvement in tackling contact crimes, a priority for the South African Police Service (SAPS).
Gen Phiyega cites as an example of this collaboration the police working with Eskom and large metros to tackle cable theft, which costs the economy R5bn a year.
The Institute for Security Studies (ISS) cites the failure to combat crimes against business as proof that “the current ability of the SAPS crime intelligence division is in question”. The organisation says the police’s inability to combat commercial crime backs those who question whether years of suspensions, resignations, and criminal allegations against crime intelligence management has undermined the division.
The ISS warns that the crime statistics could hide the extent of commercial crime as criminal organisations become better at identifying high-value targets.
Gauteng has recently experienced a spate of shopping-mall robberies, which are not covered by the latest crime statistics. The Consumer Goods Council of SA says retail robberies have reached “the highest recorded level”.
“The continued targeting of the retail sector by organised crime syndicates is of considerable concern to the industry,” says the head of the council’s consumer goods crime risk initiative, Graham Wright.
He urges retailers to organise to share information and “develop solutions and strengthen partnerships with all relevant stakeholders and role players”.
Insurer Santam says the decrease in commercial crime figures reflects the results of four years of successfully working with numerous state entities. The South African Insurance Crime Bureau has set up numerous initiatives with the SAPS to address economic crimes, says Santam’s head of audit and forensic services, Helen du Toit.
According to PwC’s 2014 global economic crime survey, 69% of South African organisations had experienced some form of economic crime in the previous 24 months, compared with 37% globally. PwC found that senior and middle management are the main perpetrators of economic crimes — collectively committing 77% of such crimes. “While it is alarming that we’re the country most affected by economic crime, it is positive that the penny has dropped and the industry now understands the severity of the problem and is taking steps to rectify the problem,” says Ms Du Toit.
Gen Phiyega says SAPS crime intelligence has to address business robberies that turn out to be “inside jobs”. The syndicates involved are often sophisticated and “in some cases we are seeing collusion between workers, those working for security companies as well as some police officers”, she says.
She says the 200% growth in bank robberies was from a low base in the previous reporting period, and SAPS crime intelligence foiled a bank robbery last Thursday.
Earlier this year Gen Phiyega announced a restructuring of the SAPS crime intelligence division that will allow it to “become a highly focused unit which delivers on its core mandate of crime information gathering, and crime pattern analysis, in close collaboration with other SAPS environments”.
ISS justice, governance and crime programme head Gareth Newham says the increase in robberies is a clear sign that “the police are not on top of it”.
He says there are several highly qualified individuals employed by crime intelligence, and its functioning can improve if the problems, of political appointments and responsibilities are addressed.
Commercial crime statistics are an indicator of the health of crime intelligence, Mr Newham says. Crimes with social roots may require social responses, but with syndicates “this is simple policing, there is no other way”, he says.
Source: Business Day Live