“It's really, really becoming a war out there”, says Wahl Bartmann, CEO of Fidelity Services Group, the largest cash transport company in South Africa.
Cash-in-transit (CIT) heists characterised by “meticulous planning” and “incredible violence” have increased by 30% since last year, he says.
“If you look at the stats, more than 250 attacks this year, at least half of them bombings, it's a disaster.”
The former Springbok rugby player and his managers are focused on operational issues that have more in common with a battlefield than a boardroom.
“Our managers wake up in the morning not thinking about business, they think about risk. The focus of the business is totally risk orientated instead of business orientated.”
They ’re focused on tactics to prevent the 1,000 vehicles they have on the roads every day being bombed and their staff being blown up or shot. Sixteen have been killed so far this year, and more than 50 injured.
“They're being ambushed from all sides by guys, probably ex-military trained individuals, with semi-automatics using bullets that penetrate armour-plated steel.”
He has seven helicopters in the air every day with support units.
“We've implemented processes and procedures, including deploying choppers in every province flying in backup teams for our staff.”
This has “huge” cost implications, all borne by the company, though they “engage” with their clients, who include all the big retailers and banks, over costs. “We say to them they need to contribute and support us.”
Keeping the helicopters in the air costs “easily” between R12m and R15m a month. Their armoured vehicles are around R2m each, plus “a few million” every month fixing or replacing those that are blown up.
They're no longer a match for the kind of explosives being used and they're designing “basically a semi-military vehicle” to be deployed by the end of the year, “a totally different concept and configuration of vehicle”, which is also much more costly.
They're doing whatever it takes from their side, Bartmann says, but they need better support from law enforcement.
“We need the criminal justice system to play its part so that we can get more convictions.”
A lot of those arrested are repeat offenders out on bail, and a lot of charges are withdrawn because of inadequate investigations.
“We've got a division now that looks at that. They do a watching brief, attend court proceedings to try and make sure that law enforcement has all the documentation and evidence and pending cases against each individual to try and ensure bail gets denied.”
Their oversight division includes former police officers and detectives, and advocates from the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).
“We go to the courts to assist, train and support wherever we can.”
He wants to see the NPA putting together a team of specialised prosecutors to handle CIT-related cases, as well as a special court and special magistrates.
“If you look at the rate of these attacks and the violence involved, it definitely demands a specialised investigative and prosecutorial unit.”
It's not just the frequency of attacks but their ferocity that is eye-popping, he says.
Vehicles are being bombed with their staff inside. A vehicle attacked last week was bombed four times. A day before this interview another vehicle was bombed.
It's a war out there, he says, and right now they're losing it.
“We need the police, we need whoever, even the army. I don't know if we'd be much better off, but you can't have the police taking half an hour to respond, in town, to a bombing,” as happened recently.
The costs of their failure to curb the heists are borne by the industry and they're unsustainable.
“We as an industry have got to a point where it is very difficult to sustain this business. Our costs are huge.”
Apart from the spiralling fuel price, they include the mounting costs of medical cover, trauma support for badly injured staff, many of them in hospital, and insurance.
Their insurers are Lloyds and the premiums are pound-based, “so you can imagine what that does”. Everything works on a loss ratio. “If your loss ratios are not in sync, your premiums go up. We're running on a huge excess.”
The heists are “just getting worse and worse” and it's not even the festive season yet, when traditionally they spike. They're also bracing for an election spike.
“We can't really explain it, but we've seen that with elections there's an increase in CIT heists.”
The level of planning, co-ordination and execution, and the kind of equipment the robbers have, leaves him in no doubt they're the work of syndicates with police connections. The attacks are meticulously planned weeks, even months, in advance, and professionally executed.
They're being ambushed from all sides by guys, probably ex-military trained individuals, with semi-automatics using bullets that penetrate armour-plated steel
“They have cellphone jammers so you lose communication with your vehicles. A lot of them are arrested with police radios, so they know exactly where the police are and how much time they've got.
“Definitely these heists go much deeper than just criminal activity on its own.”
They seem to have police informants, though “we're not saying we're squeaky clean. We have internal people who probably leak information. I can't say that with a staff of 58,000 this doesn't happen. But we deal with it. After bombings we polygraph, we investigate. I can tell you there's a zero-tolerance policy.”
Given their resources and capacity to get information, he'd expect much more from law enforcement agencies.
“We have our informer networks, but we really need that section of the police to lift their game and support us. With the intelligence base they've got or are supposed to have, we'd expect them to be more proactive.”
What concerns him is how heists have become the norm.
“They bomb vehicles and we all accept it, and seem to accept the fact that law enforcement can't or won't go the extra mile to deal with it. It's a huge problem. I don't know if everybody sees how big the problem is. We've seen the stats; we've seen the increase. And there's no real support.”
There are some areas where the police are “very active”, where they've got intelligence that something might be happening, and they escort vehicles or deploy a helicopter.
“But that's what they need to do right through South Africa. Currently, the will is not there.”
