Copper cable thieves wrecking South African infrastructure are now also heavily armed.
Johannesburg’s electricity distribution provider, City Power, has said copper cable thieves have become heavily armed and target security guards in quieter parts of the city.newspaper, City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena explained that they were dealing with well organised criminal syndicates.Collateral damage such as substations exploding after cables are stolen cause lengthy outages and incalculable damage to local businesses.Last month it reported 140 such crimes.
The following day, criminals hospitalised a City Power security guard with a head wound sustained during a shoot-out in Kya Sands.Mangena told City Press that an underground copper cable stolen in Randpark Ridge on Wednesday was worth over R500,000. On Thursday, law enforcement arrested a Kya Sands property owner when a copper cable worth R300,000 was found on his premises.
In January, police minister Bheki Cele revealed in a written response to parliamentary questions thatA multidisciplinary task team established to fight cable theft had arrested 28 thieves since its inception in May 2020.“Two accused were found guilty and both sentenced to three years imprisonment,” Cele stated.
A third had been found guilty, sentenced to 12 years of direct imprisonment and declared unfit to possess a firearm.He explained that syndicates target quantities that will return the most value, while opportunistic criminals target smaller amounts to satisfy their immediate needs.
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