Johannesburg - Undercover police agents enticed alleged rental car hijacking syndicate members into committing a crime by offering them cash for the hijacked vehicles.
This was the contention of defence advocate Thembi Bokako, who is representing four of the nine men on trial for allegedly targeting rental vehicles in Soweto.
Bokako was cross-examining Warrant Officer Johan van Dyk, who was in charge of the crime intelligence officers who went undercover to crack the ring.
On Monday, Van Dyk told the High Court in Palm Ridge that they had received a complaint from rental companies whose vehicles were being hijacked at an alarming rate, in Soweto.
There had been 54 hijackings of their cars between April 1 and July 31, 2013 alone and police then decided to launch operation Vigour, setting up undercover agents to expose the syndicate.
The gang would call a police informant once they had found a car, and would then set up a meeting with the undercover agents. Once the price was agreed on, cars such as VW Polo Vivos would be sold for as little as R7 000.
“Don’t you think you were enticing them to commit crime? Why didn’t you just arrest them in respect of the crimes they had committed?” Bokako put it to him.
Van Dyk disagreed, saying: “As I said, we’d already established that they were committing crime.”
Bokako said the police never traced 40 other vehicles that had been reported as hijacked by the rental companies. “Would you agree with me that there was another syndicate?” she asked.
But Van Dyk disagreed, saying: “After their arrest, the hijackings stopped.” Detective Warrant Officer Leon Roestoff, one of the undercover policemen, concurred saying he had evaded a question from one of the syndicate members when asked if he was interested in any specific models.
Lawrence Zwane asked if he was interested in any of the hired vehicles, he said. “I then informed him that if they have anything they can contact me. This was done so as not to mention a specific vehicle model. I did not specifically ask them to hijack a vehicle and bring it to us. They mentioned a Polo Vivo and a Hyundai i20 and I said if they have the vehicle they must bring it.”
Zwane said he would call him when he had “a good thing available”, Roestoff told the court.
The Polo Vivo would be cheaper than the Toyota Corolla, which was priced at R10 000, while the Hyundai i20 was priced at R9 000, he was told. And so began a cash-for-cars trade that saw Roestoff receiving calls at night, informing him that cars had been found.
Carrying R10 000 cash and night vision video and audio-recording devices, he would then drive to meeting places in Soweto with the informant who was the middle man - to conclude the sale.
On one occasion, they were made to wait as the car they had been promised was still at a car wash and on another occasion, he had been advised to leave Soweto via Orlando to evade police, as the car he was sold had been hijacked in Meadowlands.
Most of the cars were from Budget car rental, but Avis, Europcar and Imperial were also targeted. Following the gang’s arrest, the hijackings decreased significantly in Soweto, Van Dyk said.
Thabo Mayekiso, Bheki Nkabinde, Thokozani Buthelezi, Joseph Bongani Khoza, Ralph Bongani Mazibuko, Sicelo Siwela and Philani Thulani Skhosana are also in the dock.
The Star