A new report has revealed that more than a thousand kidnappings have been reported since January 2022, that is more than double the 700 monthly average in 2021.
The details by Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) in a Strategic Organised Crime Risk Assessment report for South Africa reveals that the increase in the number of cases has become an established and lucrative criminal practice in South Africa.
The GI-TOC said kidnapping for ransom or extortion (KRE) has been on the rise in South Africa since 2016.
Victims
“Victims include vulnerable members of townships and informal settlements, migrants, as well as prominent businesspeople and their families – with ransoms calibrated accordingly.
“Transnational crime syndicates have driven a recent wave of high-level extortion and have given rise to numerous local copycat groups, but the majority of KRE is likely to be low level, targeting marginalised communities for small amounts – cases that often go unreported due to police mistrust,” it said.
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GI-TOC said while law enforcement has made notable arrests in connection with KRE, the growing numbers of incidents suggest that it has become an established and lucrative criminal practice in South Africa.
Top kidnapping provinces
According to a report by Outlier, Gauteng heads the pack with the number of kidnappings reported in the first six months of 2022, which is already 60% higher than the number reported for the whole of 2019.
The report also revealed that between January and June this year, an average of 579 kidnappings a month were reported in Gauteng, up from 277 in 2021 and 182 in 2019.
KwaZulu-Natal had the second highest number of kidnappings, with an average of 218 kidnappings a month for the first half of 2022.
However, Mpumalanga has shown the second-highest increase in kidnappings, after Gauteng.
Cases in the first six months of 2022 (538) are already 15% higher than the total for 2019 (466) while Mpumalanga police stations have reported an average of 90 kidnappings a month for 2022.
Kidnapping on the increase
Kidnapping according to the South African Police Service‘s (Saps) definition has been rising since 2008/2009 with the only drop observed during the first Covid-19 pandemic lockdown.
“The first three quarters of 2021/22 have seen more reported incidents than the whole of the 2019/20 financial year.”
Outlier reported that the provincial pattern is reflected in the 20 police stations that reported the most kidnappings in the first six months of 2022; three are in KwaZulu-Natal (Inanda, Umlazi and Pinetown), one is in Mpumalanga (Delmas) and the rest are in Gauteng.
“The two stations that reported the highest number of kidnappings between January and June this year are Vosloorus (114) and Kempton Park (101), both in Gauteng,” it said.
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