The brutal murder of Armand Swart, wrongly identified as a whistle-blower, was believed to be orchestrated through a network of phones, including a disposable “burner” phone found on suspects, according to testimony recently given before the Madlanga Commission into police corruption.
Swart, mistaken for a colleague who had reported corruption to Transnet, was shot 23 times when arriving at work in Vereeniging in 2024.
A police investigator, under witness protection and known only as Witness A, told the commission that the four phones seized from suspects included a burner phone that could not be traced.
This example highlights how unregistered or incorrectly registered prepaid Sims used in phones are a tool in organised crime, allowing criminal syndicates and those planning contract killings and crime to communicate securely and evade detection.
The reason criminals in South Africa can plan kidnappings or murder with impunity and without fear of being traced is simple: millions of Sim cards are effectively anonymous. For as little as R10, a customer can walk into certain corner shops and buy pre-Rica’ed Sim cards pre-registered using false identity data.
This is a gaping hole in the country’s law enforcement capacity and ability to combat crime, especially violent syndicate crimes. The Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-Related Information Act (Rica), designed to ensure that Sim card users are traceable, is not working. South Africans often grudgingly accept that systems do not work as intended, but we should expect better.
Tens of millions
The scale of the problem is staggering. Tens of millions of incorrectly registered Sim cards enter the market every year, joining hundreds of millions that are in circulation. Parliamentary figures suggest that 62% of extortion cases involve unregistered Sims. These cards enable a shadow communications network where criminals can distribute illegal content, demand ransom payments or coordinate murders with near-total impunity.
Yet many other nations have shown that this problem can be fixed. India and Nigeria, with far larger populations, have implemented systems that require mandatory Sim registration using identification numbers and link Sim cards to biometrics such as facial images or fingerprints. These reforms have made it possible to trace users and close off anonymity as a tool for crime.
Read: Biometrics take centre stage in fight against Sim-swap fraud
Why has South Africa failed where others have succeeded? There appears to be an issue with enforcement of Rica regulation, unclear accountability as to who enforces regulations, legislative loopholes and a lack of incentive for mobile operators to comply with Rica.
Section 40 of Rica allows the legal transfer of Sim cards by customers. Originally designed for innocuous uses like permitting parents to register cards for children, this provision has been abused at an almost industrial scale. Bulk distributors, who are identified as customers, register thousands of Sim cards under fictitious names such as “UglyBetty123” or “DaffyDuck” and even create 13-digit strings mimicking ID numbers. These cards are then resold to end consumers, who are under no compulsion to update their details despite legally being required to.
The commercial incentives are equally problematic. Third-party distributors, used by mobile networks to drive sales, are paid commissions on airtime linked to Sim cards they distribute. This means they are motivated to sell Sims in bulk without verifying compliance. Exacerbating the dysfunction, many cards are distributed “naked”, without packaging. Naked Sims make fraudulent bulk registration easy and further weaken any traceability. The responsibility to ensure that “naked” Sims are prohibited in the market lies squarely in the hands of the mobile operators. Are they encouraging the distribution of “naked” Sims? If they are, then they are as complicit as the distributors in the systemic dysfunction that the industry faces.
Rica enforcement could also be strengthened by imposing meaningful penalties on distributors that flout the law. Closing legislative loopholes would make it harder for fictitious names and numbers to enter the system. And South Africa should consider biometric registration of Sim cards, a system already used by some banks and one that is under discussion for the distribution of social grants.
The benefits of such reforms are obvious. Fraudulent Sim registrations would become harder, criminal and contract killing syndicates would lose one of their most useful tools, and law enforcement agencies would be able to trace communications with far greater ease. Crucially, it would also restore public confidence that South Africa’s institutions can work when properly enforced.
No one pretends that South Africa’s deeply entrenched crime epidemic can be solved overnight. Real progress will require years of investment in policing, prosecution and prevention. But enforcing Rica is a clear and immediate step that would make life more difficult for criminals while signalling that the state is prepared to plug holes in its governance.
Read: Why the real story at Apple’s launch was eSim, not the iPhone Air
Every day this loophole remains open, South Africa is effectively handing criminals the perfect weapon: invisibility.
- The author, Farhad Khan, is a telecommunications industry executive who previously served as CEO of MTN Zambia as well as the chief commercial officer for Airtel Africa in Kenya. He writes here in his personal capacity
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