UPS: - VOICER - It's a busy morning at a hypermarket in Pretoria. As usual, security co-ordinator Willie Smith has his hands full. Armed robberies are his biggest fear, but guards also have to be constantly looking out for shoplifting and employee theft. When Willie's not on the shop floor, he can be found in the security monitor room. Here, fixed and hidden cameras relay pictures of high risk areas like the cash office and the music section. 

PRE-TITLE: SHRINKING SHELVES

UPS: VOICER - Willie Smith and his colleague, Wimpie du Plessis are  two of Pick n' Pay's top security men. A single hypermarket can lose as much as two million a year to pilferage. So preventing stock loss is a priority.

UPS: - WILLIE SMITH; PICK 'n  PAY -  If you look at the receiving co-ordinator, security manager and like wimpie, the security national co-ordinator, you are measured on your shrinkage. So it is very important to have a guy keeping people under his thumb.

UPS: - VOICER - Some of the most popular items stolen by shoplifters are razor blades, artificial sweeteners, batteries and chocolates.

UPS: WILLIE SMITH; PICK 'n PAY - It's very easy  put your hands here - press it and walk away gilette is going out of its way to ensure with these clips that guys take time so that you can pick him up on camera. This guy with the jacket is going to the blades section. we have a big problem on blades and it's world wide. A packet of mach3 turbo is hundred and twenty if you steal ten of that in small packaging it can easy hide away. Usually work in group of two and three you see another guy with the red shirt going in  they will alert each other if somebody is coming or whatever. There it goes inside the pockets. There is a big market outside for this kind of merchandise

UPS: - VOICER - Wimpie often scans the classifieds for items marked “unwanted goods”. He's discovered several outlets that sell stolen merchandise.

UPS: - WIMPIE SMITH; PICK 'n PAY- They come and shoplift and sell it on the black market, flea markets and stuff. we sell it here for a hundred and something, you get blades in some places for forty five rand. the same with canderel - five people come into a store and three of them are stuffing them in  one arrest here was about three thousand.

UPS: - VOICER - Also popular are DVD's and CD's. Here thieves often work in pairs.

UPS: -WILLIE SMITH; PICK 'n PAY - He goes there looking around put the empty one do you see holder because it has a sensor  it will be picked up the  And the  alarm will go off that is why you will find the empty cases and empty cartridges of stuff all around the store very organized. One will take it off, put it underneath. The other will come cause they know they is a camera they will be checking and taking it off you know they only take the disc that is inside. There it is that is the second guy now the other one comes back for his part of the deal. There it goes inside shopping is done. Twenty thousand rand a month only from two guys here they come out and here they got them. That was the second time both of them.

UPS: - VOICER - But many shoplifters aren't caught. DVD's are stolen, copied and sold on the street. The Consumer Goods Council of South Africa says shoplifting is the reason why road traders are able to sell the real thing so cheaply.

UPS: - MICHAEL BROUGHTON; CONSUMER GOODS COUNCIL SA - Surely the big chain store who is selling a thousand pairs of trainers every week would get a better price than this guy on the side of the road? Why would tommy hilfiger want to sell perfume on the corner of jan smuts and william nicol? Why would warner brothers sell their dvd's at that huge supermarket on william nicol offramp from the concrete highway? People just need to think for themselves. unfortunately there's a growing band of professional shoplifters. they operate in gangs, are transported here and there by their crime bosses and they are shoplifting to order.

UPS: - VOICER - We followed an amateur shoplifter around a store. She says they are slowly becoming more professional.

UPS: - SHOPLIFTER ONE -  There are a lot of people i know who shoplift. Some stay at orange farm. when they go to shoplift they even hire transport. they change towns all the time  they go to Germiston, bekkersdal and so on. they don't just go to Johannesburg.

UPS: - SHOPLIFTER TWO - Every shop i go to i've done research. I know when the staff break. I go early as they open the shop.

UPS: - VOICER - The shoplifter we followed was able to conceal a whole chicken between her thighs. One of the newer tricks that Willie and Wimpie have cottoned onto is “double shopping”. Two people will come into a store with exactly the same shopping list. But only one of them pays. The receipt is then handed over to the other.

 UPS: - WILLIE SMITH; PICK 'n PAY - There's big money to be made out there. you know your double buyers. you have to pick them up because they are very difficult to spot on the shop floor.

UPS: - VOICER - Willie and Wimpie were tipped off about the scam by a disgruntled member of a shoplifting syndicate. They caught one of them trying to get a refund for items just stolen.

UPS: WIMPIE DU PLESSIS; PICK 'n PAY - So the under covers and everybody was on the shop floor looking for them. and we started picking them up at the refunds counter. he wanted to refund a grinder so he wants to get his money back just paid at the till now. He just don't want to loose nothing.

UPS: - VOICER - The suspect then spilled the beans, explaining exactly how double buyers operate. But for every plan foiled, there seems to be another hatched.

AD BREAK 2

UPS: -  VOICER - Like many Johannesburg residents, Audrey Mbuyazi spends a fair amount of time in the shopping centres and malls that have come to characterize the city. Over the past year, she's noticed a disturbing trend. While looking at a particular item, she's often approached by shop assistants. They then offer her a special deal on the side, unbeknown to the shop owner.

UPS: - AUDREY MBUYAZI - In a space of four months, it happened to me practically every second week. I was looking for a lawn mower, i was offered two lawn mowers from two different shops I was looking for an over-locker foot  I was offered that in a big supermarket by a lady there who said meet me afterwards and give me fifty rand. This part costs two hundred rand and there aren't any in stock. but there is one here on display. meet me afterwards and give me your phone no.

UPS: - VOICER - A keen gardener, she's lost count of the number of times she's been approached at plant nurseries. A few weeks ago, she was looking at pebbles. A staff member approached her and said she could have them at half price.

UPS: - AUDREY MBUYAZI - And we get round to behind where the tills are and she said to me what do you speak? I said I speak Shona, and she said I can give you these for about two hundred rand. Just go to your car and give the lady who has delivered the things two hundred rand. I said how are we going to do that? She said you just pay her that's all you need to do.

UPS: - VOICER - Audrey realised that the nursery owner knew nothing about the “special” being offered to her. So she refused.

UPS: - AUDREY MBUYAZI - I think it all depends on what language you speak because they check what is it that you speak, so i'm not sure if they'd do it with white folk as such because they would probably only speak english or afrikaans, which can be understood by the owners of the nursery, but if you can speak any other language that they can communicate in to you, you can win as she said.

UPS: - VOICER - We tried it out ourselves, armed with a spy camera. Before long, we'd arranged a deal.

UPS: - NURSERY ASSISTANT - You give me half price of the amount.

UPS: - VOICER - So I'll give four hundred? How's it going to work?

UPS: - NURSERY ASSISTANT - The pebbles are already outside.

UPS: - VOICER - The assistant said he could sell us black pebbles worth ninety nine rand a bag, for fifty rand a bag. While we paid for some pot plants at the till, another staff member made his way to our car with the pebbles. All very tempting for those lacking a conscience.

UPS: - AUDREY MBUYAZI - Oh yes -it's not me walking out with goods. It's bring it to my house, often they will take my phone number and they I'll bring it to your house. Or I will meet you outside the shop as in the big supermarket so in essence you don't have to steal someone else steals and you just pay them I mean I always get very frustrated when you go to these indian owned businesses buy your goods, get to the till, tick it all off - get to the door - tick it off again. And you think  come on I've paid. but now i realise why they do it. If they have any inkling of what i've been offered and the things that go on  I would check my goods going out of the shop three times as well.

UPS: - VOICER - Retail security expert Shane Pillay says double checking is a good way to prevent pilfering but.

UPS: - SHANE PILLAY - On the other hand, you are in the business of making money. don't chase away your customers. I would rather employ retail security officers to patrol round my merchandise to create awareness on the floor, than having a military guard at the front door checking each parcel.

UPS: - VOICER -  Guards are easily bribed, according to the shoplifters we interviewed.

UPS: - SHOPLIFTER TWO - If they spot us we bribe them. We usually talk to them give them and then we get out.

UPS: - SHOPLIFTER ONE - Most of the time you can give a security guard twenty rand to go out of a shop. you can go to that shop many times to shoplift as long as you have paid twenty rand to the security guard.

UPS: - VOICER - Cashiers, it seems, are easily bribed too. Under-ringing is a common practice. The cashier will pass three or four items through to the packer, but will only register one on the bar code machine. In this incident, the shopper put through two laden trolleys and was charged eight hundred and forty. But security realised something was amiss and descended on the pay point. A new cashier rescanned the items and the bill was revised to over three thousand rands. The customer got away with it. The cashier wasn't so lucky.

UPS: - SHANE PILLAY - We focus on behavioural patterns. certain staff members have behavioural patterns that warrants you to focus on them and we do that. whether it's for a week or a month. it pays off in the end they slip up.

UPS: - VOICER - This cashier can be seen kicking a basket containing new shoes towards her till point. Later, she conceals them inside her jacket. She then asks the packer to swap places with her. Using a trolley for support, she makes her way to one of the satellite stores in the same building. She obviously plans to stash the stolen shoes there. But security put an end to her plans. Many companies are reluctant to report internal theft because of negative publicity. Criminology professor Rika Snyman says it's rife.

UPS: - RIKA SNYMAN  - Employee theft is a major problem. obviously one would never know how big customer shoplifting figure would be because not all shoplifters are actually apprehended. but from shrinkage that shops identify it appears as though the employees contribution to shoplifting is much higher than what customers shoplifting would be.

UPS: - VOICER - Losses are also huge at the back door - where goods are received from suppliers. Pick 'n Pay recently arrested staff members who were selling goods to the public before they even reached the shelves.

UPS: - WIMPIE DU PLESSIS; PICK 'n PICK - And on the invoice it would be twenty fridges model numbers so and so and the guy who is  receiving the stock receives fifteen. so the other five stay on the truck and they sell it to whoever wants a fridge. Sometimes you get a guy who is phoning the delivery people saying I am looking for this stock can you arrange it for me? And it's being arranged.

UPS: - PROF RIKA SNYMAN; UNISA - Often in shops where employees are involved, it's a distinct network that operates. not one employee stealing on his own. it's very much a matter of covering each others backs.

AD BREAK 2

UPS: - VOICER - JP Visser and a group of friends were recently shopping at a mall in Somerset West. They decided to go ten pin bowling and put their wallets and phones in a handbag for safe-keeping. The bag also contained two and a half thousand rands. At some stage it was stolen. JP contacted the mall security, who looked through camera footage and found the suspects.The cameras had followed them from the bowling area, through the mall to the parking garage as they left.

UPS: - JP VISSER - When they walked in they had only one handbag, when they went out, there were two handbags

UPS: - VOICER - JP noted the car registration number and managed to trace the suspects.

UPS: - JP VISSER - I've got the names, phone numbers, addresses  everything of the people that stole the stuff. i took that evidence to the police and so far they have done nothing about it.

UPS: - VOICER - The Mall security wasn't particularly interested in following up the incident either.

UPS: - JP VISSER - I feel that people are getting paid at the mall and at the police . What are they getting paid  for ? Why must i go and do my work my business and still run after people who steal my stuff. It is not my work.

UPS: - VOICER - The problem, say retailers and consumer groups, is that police and the courts don't want to be burdened with incidents of petty crime.

UPS: - MICHAEL BROUGHTON; CONSUMER GOODS COUNCIL OF SOUTH AFRICA - There is a growing frustration in the industry with the lack of response or the mild treatment meted out to offenders. we are in discussion with prosecuting authorities and the courts to look at setting up special shoplifting courts to be able to process the shoplifters quicker, to alleviate the responsibility on store owners and store managers to get these people properly prosecuted and through the judicial system and getting their just desserts

UPS: - VOICER - But very often offenders steal out of desperation.

UPS: - SHOPLIFTER 1 - I steal for myself and for my family. i steal things like meat, coffee and clothes. I don't sell them, it's just things i need at home

UPS: - SHOPLIFTER TWO - I like wearing fashionable clothes and i also provide clothes for my siblings and the children of my sister, who passed away. They are my main concern.

UPS: - SHOPLIFTER ONE - I have a way of stealing. I know how to go out with stolen stuff from a shop. I was once arrested and spent a week in prison. that made me to be more careful. It also made me more experienced. I feel bad because i want a job and don't want to be a shoplifter. but I can't work and it makes me sad.

UPS: - VOICER - Criminologists say sadness and depression often contribute to shoplifting, more so than poverty.

UPS: - PROF RIKA SNYMAN; UNISA - Poverty is not a cause of crime. Poverty is a contributing factor to crime. if one says you steal because of poverty, then all poor people are criminals which very cleary  is not so. we've got to change the way we think and that will change the way we behave.  shoplifting is very much a crime of choice and opportunity. So the less opportunities there are, the less shoplifting but cleary we cannot go without these physical security measures, they are very important

UPS: - SHOPLIFTER ONE -  I do think of cameras and most of the time when you enter a shop, you will see a camera. But it does not show the whole shop at once. It goes row by row. You just have to run to the other row when it faces you.  

UPS: - MICHAEL BROUGHTON; CONSUMER GOODS COUNCIL OF SOUTH AFRICA - If we could reduce crime in our industry, which is what we are busy doing, what we are working hard at achieving, we can reduce the cost of these commodities to the consumer. Rest assured south africa we are doing something about it!

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