Spoornet infiltrates gangs in scrap export scam

More arrests expected Alan Peat FOLLOWING REPORTS of the massive police bust of a criminal syndicate stealing and exporting scrap stolen from Spoornet (FTW November 2, 2001), the railway authorities have been able to reveal that they've had under-cover investigators inside the gang for some time now. "We were in on the raid of the Durban scrap merchants which was packing the scrap ready for export to India," said Mike Asefovitz, media liaison manager of Spoornet. "It's a whole syndicate behind the theft and sales of our scrap, and we infiltrated our own guys to uncover the whole scheme. "We expect more arrests soon." On the raid, the organised crime unit (OCU) found 50 rail wagons, a number of coaches, overhead copper cable, steel poles and railway lines valued at R3-million - all cut up and ready to send to India. The previous problem - which Spoornet has now sorted out - was that scrap was cut and distributed from yards all around the country. This, according to Asefovitz, made the processing and movement of scrap very difficult to control. "We've therefore introduced a lot of measures to control our scrap operation," he told FTW. "One part of these is to centralise the cutting processes to only a couple of secure areas which are not easy to access without being properly identified." The gang which the police/Spoornet investigation has just collared "is a mixture of insiders and outsiders". Asefovitz added.