Johannesburg - The State Security Agency is supposed to monitor internal and external threats to the country’s security, but many of the surveillance cameras at its own Pretoria headquarters aren’t working.
Six men broke into the spy HQ on December 26 and stole R50 million in foreign exchange from a safe - but the only thing the closed circuit TV system was able to capture was of one man in a hoodie in a corridor.
Now the red-faced agency has had to appeal to the public to help identify the thief, in the hope of nabbing his five accomplices.
“The cameras are not maintained properly. Nobody checks if the cameras are still working. This is so embarrassing,” a highly placed source told The Star on Thursday.
“How can an office that is supposed to protect South Africans from terrorists or any threats to the country fail to maintain a simple thing like cameras?
“How can we trust them with our lives?”
According to the sources, two men could be seen taking out the money from the safe, but they looked away from the camera.
“This shows that these people knew where the cameras are facing. That is why we are convinced it was an inside job.
“It’s someone who knows which cameras are working,” added a source.
The sources also said it was strange that the thieves did not have to force the safe open, but instead used keys.
“That’s the petty cash that is used by the sources when they travel to do projects overseas, because they don’t use credit cards,” added the source.
The source said that after taking the loot, the thieves left the safe open and it was only when the security guards who were patrolling saw this that they raised the alarm, by which time the burglars had already made good their escape.
Hawks spokesman Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi said a task team drawn from a specialist police unit was busy investigating the break-in, but that detectives were appealing to the public to help them to identify the suspect.
“It’s a social responsibility of every South African to help with investigations that will lead to the arrest of criminals, not only in this matter.
“We have not been able to identify the suspect in the footage. We are relying on the public to help us arrest these people. This is a serious crime against the state. We want to know who these people are,” he said.
Investigations were at a sensitive stage, he said. “All the details will be disclosed in due course. At the moment we don’t want anything to jeopardise the investigation. This is a very serious case,” he said.
The theft has left security analysts dismayed that one of the country’s most secure buildings could be robbed so easily.
Independent organised crime investigator Chad Thomas said he was shocked by the robbery.
“The State Security Agency, which is made up of members of the now defunct National Intelligence Agency and South African Secret Service, is South Africa’s foremost and most important domestic and foreign intelligence-gathering agency. The headquarters houses all of our national secrets and is obviously extremely secure. The fact that someone made off with R50m in forex smacks of an inside job and arrogance on the part of the perpetrators. It is a sad indictment of security in South Africa that the SSA can be robbed.”
DA spokesman on state security Dirk Stubbe, who also serves on the joint standing committee on intelligence, expressed shock at the breach of security.
He said he would be demanding answers in Parliament as to how the breach happened.
Police are appealing to anyone with information to contact Colonel Tolie Vreugdengburg on 082 451 7226 or Colonel Makasela Nkuna on 082 565 8506. “All information will be handled with strictest confidence,” said Mulaudzi.
The Star
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