Pietermaritzburg - A Pietermaritzburg High Court judge on Monday expressed concern about the way money was being moved around the country, using armoured vehicles, saying it was a temptation.
Judge Rishi Seegobin questioned Willem Mattheus van der Merwe, of the South African Banking Risk Information Centre (Sabric), on cash-in-transit incidents after he presented the court with statistics on it.
Van der Merwe was testifying on behalf of the State in aggravation of sentence for Siboniso Mpanza, Thulani Doncabe and Sandile Shongwe. The men had been convicted of 23 crimes, including five murders arising from a foiled heist at Capitec Bank in Richmond two years ago.
Van der Merwe said there were 166 cash-in-transit incidents reported in the country between January 2012 and last month in which R33.5 million was lost. In that period, 78 people were killed, five of whom were civilians.
Judge Seegobin questioned why the number of these crimes was high when so many measures had been put in place to prevent them.
“Where are we going as a country? Are we not progressing beyond this?”
“When are we going to get to a point where we stop seeing vehicles collecting money, from one place to another, putting their lives and other innocent peoples, at risk.”
He asked what Sabric was doing to advise the banking industry to curb the crimes. Van der Merwe said they collected information.
The judge asked what was the point of collecting information rather than ensuring this type of offence did not happen.
He asked if Sicelo Phungul’s family would be interested in statistics.
Phungula, a security guard, and Sergeant Thamsanqa Zondi were two of the five killed by the accused. The other three were members of their gang who were shot dead during ensuing battles in the wake of the attempted robbery.
The judge asked if in other countries money was moved the same way as here.
Van der Merwe replied yes. He added that arrests, convictions and stiff sentences might prevent people from committing cash-in-transit crimes.
State advocate Candy Kander argued that the accused should be given life sentences for the murders, adding that in the 2013/2014 reporting period, eight policemen had been killed in the line of duty in the province.
She said the robbery the men took part in was more serious than the average housebreaking or hijacking.
Sentencing takes place on Tuesday.
The Mercury