Ten minutes 49 seconds. That’s all it takes for three car thieves to steal a blue Toyota RunX in a Joburg northern suburb.
It’s 5.19:01am.
The RunX is parked outside the front gate of a block of flats.
A man wearing a grey T-shirt and jeans approaches. He kneels and reaches under the car to cut the alarm.
A second man wearing a green T-shirt and a pair of jeans approaches the complex’s gate, pretending to ring the bell. He holds a tool behind his back.
A third man wearing a blue T-shirt and shorts hangs around.
To anyone passing, it appears they are having car trouble.
At 5.22:19am, a jogger runs past.
Seconds later, one of the men goes to the driver’s door and shoves the tool into the driver’s door lock.
He struggles for 12 or so seconds. The door won’t budge. His accomplice comes to help, but it doesn’t work.
They abort the plan. Instead one goes to the back door and removes the triangular window. Fifteen seconds later the doors are open.
Two get in. The third stands guard.
It’s 5.23:12am.
For about six minutes the two battle to start it.
In the meantime, several cars pass, another jogger runs by and a man walks past the car.
Still the men struggle on.
Then the car shudders to life.
By 5.29:53am the RunX is gone.
This sequence is from security camera footage on December 31.
This RunX is one of about 60 000 vehicles that will be stolen this year – a projection from last year’s crime statistics.
While crime statistics over the past 17 years show a 50percent drop in car theft, 64 504 cars were stolen across SA last year.
Of these, at least 15 percent – or 10 112 cars – were stolen in 37 suburbs around Joburg, from Johannesburg Central to the Sandton police precinct in the north and from Cleveland in the east to Honeydew and Douglasdale in the west.
In the same areas, 1653 cars were hijacked.
Sandton police reduced car theft by 239 – from 733 to 494 in 2010/2011.
Community police forum chair Wendy Vorster-Robertson attributes this to visible policing.
“We don’t have too many incidents. Carjacking is mostly happening in the Buccleuch area. Most of the stuff is going to Tembisa. Car theft is still a hotspot at certain high-end malls in the area,” said Vorster-Robertson.
In Parkview, the number of car thefts increased last year by 94, from 335 in 2010 to 429.
Statistics show a small decline in car thefts in Moroka and Dobsonville in Soweto, but an increase in Kliptown, where the police say they dealt with 101 cases last year – up from the 67 recorded in 2010.
Gareth Crocker, spokesman for car-tracking company Tracker, said they had noticed thieves targeted cars parked on the fringes of shopping centre parking lots.
“But increasingly, large crowd events like school sports days and music concerts are being targeted, given the informal nature of parking structures at these events.”
Servaas du Plessis, CEO of insurance assessing and verification company Censao, said while both vehicle theft and hijacking were down, there was an increase in the stealing of double-cab bakkies, 4x4s and SUVs.
Duplicated keys, popular in the past to steal cars, were out. The new trend was for thieves to bring their own computer boxes with them, installing them on the scene within a minute. - The Star