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| South African police search a building where alleged foreign drug dealers hide in Pretoria CREDIT: AFP/GETTY IMAGES |
A gang disguised as policemen pulled off a brazen heist at Johannesburg’s international airport late on Tuesday night, stealing at least £1.5 million in cash as it was loaded onto a South African Airways plane bound for London.
At least eight robbers, all of them wearing police uniforms, drove to the plane in an unmarked police van and two high powered vehicles and held up security guards as the money, made up of various currencies and carried in bags, was being loaded onto the airplane at around 7.45 pm.
No shots were fired during the heist and no injuries were reported, according the Airports Company of South Africa. The robbers used access cards to open gates and gain access to the tarmac. They then escaped through the same entrance at the OR Tambo International airport with blue lights flashing on their vehicles. The airlines said the heist could be an inside job as it happened in an area of the airport only cleared for personnel with the appropriate access tags.
“The consignment that was targeted is high-value items that were inside that particular container,” a spokesman said.
The brazenness of the criminals involved and the ease with which access was gained to a highly secure area is of huge concern”, said the the South African Banking Risk Information Centre, a non profit company started by the country’s largest banks to prevent crime in the industry.
“The heist was executed using accurate information, which resulted in the criminals getting away with millions of rand in cash,” said Kalyani Pillay, the organisation’s chief executive. “This incident exacerbates an already dire situation of attacks on cash in transit vehicles and staff. “We know that syndicates perpetrating these kinds of crimes are highly skilled and organised.”
In 2016, SABRIC recorded 269 cash-in-transit incidents compared to 249 in 2015. Some 57 incidents have been recorded in 2017 so far. The airport has been the scene of various police-linked crimes in the past year.
The head of the police’s internal investigative unit told parliament last month that one of the cases being investigated involved police and members of the elite Hawks police unit shooting at each other, in what appeared to have been a fight over confiscated drugs.
Mr Robert McBride said police officials were killing each other in order to get their hands on confiscated drugs, which were being moved through domestic arrivals at the airport.
In October 2014‚ a gang armed with semi-automatic rifles smashed into a security vehicle as it left the cargo section of the airport and stole piles of dollars‚ euros and pounds that had just been flown into the country.
In 2006‚ around 100 million rand was stolen in a heist at the airport. The gang worked with three airport staff in robbing an international flight moving foreign currency.
Gangs also frequently tail travellers as they leave the airport and hijack them in their driveways as they arrive home.
