Security expert Chad Thomas of IRS Forensic Investigations says copycat syndicates are springing up to get in on the lucrative action.
You’d have to say that SA Police Service Major-General Feroz Khan and his crime intelligence national anti-kidnapping task team have a tough job… but they seem to be making headway against what he calls “one of the toughest organised crime threats in this country”.
Since the team was set up in 2021 – following a spike in the number of kidnappings for ransom – the team has made 437 arrests, secured 68 convictions, and seized 182 firearms in its ongoing crackdown on kidnapping-for-ransom syndicates.
Khan says: “Kidnapping for ransom is not a random crime. It is run by syndicates. Every arrest, every firearm recovered, and every vehicle seized chips away at these criminal ecosystems.”
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Those ecosystems are not confined to abductions for money; they include cross-border smuggling and drug trafficking. Yet, one has to feel for Khan and his hard-working cops as they try, in his words, to restore public confidence in law enforcement.
Security expert Chad Thomas of IRS Forensic Investigations says copycat syndicates are springing up to get in on the lucrative action.
He adds: “We see multiple express kidnappings taking place each week where everyday persons are held for a few hours while their bank accounts are cleared; we’re seeing kidnap for ransom cases where victims can be held for months while tens of millions of rands are negotiated; we’re seeing kidnappings of middle-class victims in suburbia released on payments of thousands of rands; and kidnappings in informal settlements of young children released after a few hundred rand is paid. No one is immune to this growing scourge.”
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But he acknowledges that cooperation between the cops and private security companies is bearing fruit, as the thugs are being taken down.
However, Khan has a point when he says that kidnapping is not a problem for someone else – we as a community need to help the cops.
