If there's no co-operation - the criminal wins. HOW DO you get five container operations - basically in cut-throat competition - to unite as a team in fighting container crimes? Relatively easily, according to Isobel Louw of Roadwing - one of the five companies.
Show them how much it costs them if they don't, she said, and they won't need any more convincing. And the scale of crime that this business/police combined force is working against is frighteningly high-level. These are major, international criminal syndicates, said Louw. In underworld terms these are big business. And the City Deep/Kazerne area - home of Johannesburg's inland port and container distribution operations - has been a prime target for these hungry theft syndicates.
We had a big robbery problem at City Deep, said Louw. First Spoornet PX (the railways' parcel express operation) was robbed blind. Then the criminal gangs started in on containers - and it just grew from there. In the 18-months up to May, 1996, an investigation showed that at least 250 containers passing through the area were robbed somewhere along their line of travel. These recorded instances totalled theft of more than R70-million worth of containerised goods.
Those are just the ones we know about, said Louw. Add in the others that were not reported to us, and you could be talking about two-to-three times that amount. Another hint of the scale of this crime wave is contained in just three of the dockets opened for crimes where false bills of entry were involved. These were cases where R22-m, R18-m and R2,1- m were the amounts reported.
In the first two months after the anti-theft project was started, a syndicate of over 400 members was uncovered - with 80 of these people employed by the private companies in the container distribution industry.
At the same time, some employees in shipping companies at City Deep were threatened with death if they revealed anything.
When it gets that far, said Louw, it doesn't take any more to persuade the private sector to take action. You've got to forget your marketing rivalry and get it together.
If there's no co-operation - the criminal wins.
