ATM bombings - cause for concern

ATM BOMBINGS A CAUSE FOR SERIOUS CONCERN
The Democratic Alliance has called for a dedicated police unit to
investigate the recent spate of automatic teller machine (ATM)
bombings around the country.
There have been 294 ATM bombings - seven in Gauteng alone during the
past week - since January this year.
"The dramatic increase in the number of ATM bombings this year
underscores the need for these crimes to be treated as a national
emergency and to be investigated by a dedicated unit within the SAPS,"
DA spokesperson Dianne Kohler-Barnard said last Thursday.
It was clear that these attacks were being carried out by highly
sophisticated and heavily armed syndicates, which if not adequately
dealt with, threatened to add to South Africa's already horrific
levels of aggravated robbery, she said.
The modus operandi of ATM bombings indicated that they were generally
carried out by organised groups of individuals armed with assault
rifles and explosives.
This raised the concern that members of the SA Police Service (SAPS)
or the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) were possibly involved.
Already at least two SAPS members had been implicated in recent ATM attacks.
Access to explosives and assault weapons might also have been
facilitated by the numerous thefts of such weapons from the SAPS and
SANDF.
SAPS's organised crime unit was reportedly working on investigating
some of these cases, but it was unclear whether there was sharing of
information throughout the country and whether investigators were able
to properly collate information on similarities in the techniques used
to carry them out.
Further complicating the situation was the fact that ATM bombings were
inconsistently recorded as armed robberies, malicious damage to
property, or contraventions of the Explosives Act.
The lack of consistent criminal intelligence-gathering meant the
police were often unable to identify trends and spot patterns,
Kohler-Barnard said.
"All too often it seems that the SAPS are unable to respond quickly to
changes in criminal activity."
"While the SAPS may argue with some justification that the increase in
ATM bombings is a direct result of their success in combating
cash-in-transit heists, this does not absolve them from dealing with
this new, arguably even more dangerous, trend."
Much of the SAPS' inability to adapt to changes in behaviour by
well-organised criminal syndicates was the legacy of the suspended
National Police Commissioner's Jackie Selebi's decision to
systematically disband most of the specialised units within the SAPS,
she said.
"It is only by pooling skills, expertise and resources that the SAPS
will ever be able to respond adequately to fast-evolving criminal
syndicates."
Kohler Barnard said that the DA would be submitting parliamentary
questions to Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula to determine
what was being done to combat the increase in ATM bombings, whether
the SAPS would set up a specialised unit to combat the problem and
what action was being taken to ensure that no further members of the
SAPS were implicated in these criminal acts.