Senior researcher at the Institute of Security Studies Gareth Newman says those who abused their positions at Crime Intelligence are responsible for the police’s inability to identify organised syndicates behind most of the violent crimes in South Africa.
This past week, Hawks investigator Kobus Roelofse testified before the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture that former Crime Intelligence boss Richard Mdluli abused and looted the unit’s secret service account and interfered with investigations.
Newman says this has led to the deterioration in crime intelligence, “Weather it’s taxi violence, armed robberies at shopping centres, cash in transit heists, any kind of organised crime, the capacity of the police to identify individuals and networks largely collapsed. We’ve seen a very big increase in the murders that’s gone up by 35 per cent. There’s a real increase in murders and an even bigger increase in armed robberies, 40000 more armed attacks across the country. The most recent crime statistics compared to what the case in 2012 when we still have some functioning crime intelligence, so we are all worse off.”
