On Wednesday, Police Minister Bheki Cele briefed Parliament's portfolio committee on police on steps taken by the South African Police Service (SAPS) to curb cash-in-transit heists. In the past 10 days, police have embarked on an aggressive plan of action to curb the phenomenon.
National Police Commissioner Khehla Sitole said this week that the police closed down "the whole country" last week as part of their operations.
There have been a number of arrests and a great deal of intelligence has been made known to the public, as police combat claims that they have been soft on these crimes until now. Following Wednesday's briefing and developments over the past few weeks, here are nine things we now know about cash-in-transit heists:
1. The police have arrested 10 people since the SAPS began implementing new measures to combat these crimes on June 4, according to City Press. Officers arrested six people in Mpumalanga, three in Limpopo and one in Joburg. Most of them were arrested before they could carry out their planned heists, Cele reportedly said.
2. There have been 152 cash-in-transit heists, valued at R114-million, in 2018 so far. In 2017, there were 136 heists, Pretoria News reported.
3. There were 81 incidents between April and May.
4. Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Limpopo and the North West have reportedly been identified as hotspots.
5. Between April and the end of May, the police arrested 63 suspects, said the deputy national commissioner, Lieutenant-General Sehlahle Masemola, according to City Press.
6. At a press briefing on June 6, Cele promised that the SAPS would take an "unconventional approach" to policing cash-in-transit robberies and that they had arrested 13 suspects in the past 25 hours, according to eNCA.
7. Cash losses of R470-million will be incurred this year if the current trend continues, according to the South African Banking Risk Committee (Sabric).
8. This year so far, perpetrators have injured 62 guards and killed five guards and two civilians. Eight perpetrators have been killed and three injured, according to News24.
9. The police have bought 104 high-performance vehicles, mostly unmarked, which will be parked on the highways, according to Cele.