DURBAN - Yet another mall and jewellery shop were hit on Monday.
These are the latest in a long line of robberies in Durban this year.
Galleria Mall in eManzimtoti, was the target yesterday morning with the robbers getting away with phones from a cellphone shop.
And a jewellery shop inside the lobby of the beachfront Elangeni Hotel was also robbed yesterday with the thieves stealing jewellery.
Anusha Timul, the Galleria shopping centre’s marketing manager, said there were no injuries during the robbery.
Contingency
Asked how the centre would beef up its security, Timul said: “We have a contingency plan in place and work very closely with SAPS, Metro Police and various independent bodies to combat crime.”
Police spokesperson Nqobile Gwala said: “A group of suspects armed with a firearm held up a security guard and robbed him of his cellphone and a two-way radio in one of the shopping centres in eManzimtoti.
“They went to another cellphone store where they broke the door and took a number of cellphones before fleeing in their getaway Mercedes-Benz.”
“Cases of armed robbery and burglary have been opened,” she said.
Referring to the hit on the jewellery shop in The Elangeni Hotel, Gwala said: “Four armed males entered the jewellery shop at a hotel in North Beach, pretending to be customers.
“They emptied the jewellery shelves at gunpoint and fled.
“The suspects sped off in their getaway vehicle.”
No arrests had been made.
The Daily News tried unsuccessfully to get comment from the South African Council of Shopping Centres.
Crime expert Professor Rudolph Zinn said the reason criminals were targeting shopping malls was that they were low-risk and high-return targets.
From information gathered from interviews with convicted criminals, Zinn said: “Shopping centres are considered easier targets compared to banks which have higher security.”
He said criminals liked jewellery and cellphones because like cash, they were easy to get rid of.
Another benefit was that when they hit shops at the mall, the public generally offered little resistance.
“They said they have to fire one or two shots and people will scatter,” he said.
Their escape was also easy as they would easily mix with the scattering public.
Once at the parking lots it was also hard for police to see them as they do not patrol parking lots, he said.
Because of the low level of security at the shopping malls, leaving did not pose much of a challenge as there were hardly any boom gates at malls.
Drive through
If there were, most were made of plastic and the criminals would simply drive through them.
In other cases, they would intimidate security guards to open up for them.
The criminals who commit these mall robberies are normally people who have progressed from committing lesser crimes of hijacking and house robberies.
The groups would be small and move around the province targeting various shopping malls, said Zinn.
Gwala said they had made progress and had made arrests.
She mentioned a recent case of police killing one suspect and injuring another in a shoot-out.
The suspects were believed to have been involved in the Liberty Midlands Mall robbery at the weekend.