CANDICE BAILEY, OMPHITLHETSE MOOKI AND LOUISE FLANAGAN
H E is South Africa’s most wanted man. He’s Gauteng’s most notorious suspect. And he’s from Joburg.
Thabo Happy Mosia is allegedly part of the country’s most notorious cash-in-transit gang.
Last year, the National Prosecuting Authority seized two of Mosia’s houses in Joburg, the contents and two vehicles, together valued at over R2 million. They found cash receipts showing that thousands of rand were spent on extensive home renovations.
Police said Mosia was unemployed but maintained a luxurious lifestyle. He allegedly bought a house for his mother with cash, put R700 000 into her bank accounts and spent R135 000 in cash on a car for his wife.
Mosia is the last of 50 most-wanted suspects that the Hawks are tracking who is still on the run. At yesterday’s crime statistics release, Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa said the 50 had been profiled and pursued by the Hawks.
“Many of the suspects arrested would have been involved in more than one crime incident, and in some instances one individual would range from 35 to 50 incidents,” Mthethwa noted.
The strategy was one of the reasons cited for the reduction in some of the serious-crime statistics announced yesterday. In Gauteng, all but six of the 29 categories and sub-categories of crime had come down.
Key reductions in Gauteng were murder (down from 3 444 to 3 257), sex crimes (from 15 645 to 13 987), aggravated robberies (from 47 289 to 40 052), car hijacking (from 7 444 to 5 936), truck hijacking (from 860 to 600), home robberies (from 8 051 to 7 039), business robberies (from 6 379 to 5 553), and culpable homicide (from 2 741 to 2 579).
Crimes that increased in Gauteng included drug-related crimes, driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, commercial crime, kidnapping and arson.
Nationwide and in Gauteng, the incidence of many of the most feared crimes has dropped.
For the first time since 1995 there were fewer than 16 000 murder cases. At 15 940 murders countrywide, that’s about 44 a day.
House robberies were down nationwide by 10 percent to 16 889, an average of about 46 a day.
Car hijackings dropped by 24 percent. For the first time in eight years, there were fewer than 10 700 cars hijacked – about 30 a day.
“Victory against crime is now an achievable goal,” said Mthethwa.
Professor Kopano Ratele of the Medical Research Council’s safety research and peace promotion unit said the decrease was encouraging but still small. He said it was disturbing that historically black communities were still plagued by the highest number of violent crimes.
“If you look at Rosebank, the number of murders went from 1 to zero and the number of attempted murders from 2 to zero…” He called the Joburg precinct “the safest place to live in”.
More preventive policing was needed in poorer communities as richer communities had private security companies to help bring down the statistics.
Dr Johan Burger, the Institute for Security Studies’ crime and justice programme head, said he believed the statistics were an accurate reflection of the crime situation.
See pages 6, 7, 8 and 10