Banking app kidnappings, where victims are held hostage while their bank accounts are cleaned out electronically, are a growing scourge, in-part because criminals see them as less risky next to other types of robbery.

This is according to Ian Cameron, chairman of parliament’s portfolio committee on police, who was speaking to Johannesburg radio station 702 on Tuesday. According to Cameron, a host of crimes that involve kidnapping are on the rise in South Africa and, while technology could help address the issue, it cannot offset the influence of allegedly corrupt officials in the police’s top brass.

“We are getting very close to Mexico-levels of kidnapping,” Cameron said. “Something that makes it difficult to see the exact numbers is the difference between kidnapping and kidnapping for ransom because if someone is hijacked and the criminals take them along for a ride, that would include a kidnapping charge,” said Cameron.

“We must remember how the risk profile of certain crimes changes over time. The risk profile for kidnapping, extortion or taking someone so you can go clean out their bank accounts became far lower than putting your life on the line in something like an armed robbery or cash-in-transit heist.”

Cameron said that over the years, the types of crimes involving kidnapping have changed as well as the profile of those who are targeted. In the past, criminals tended to target people of foreign descent who ran cash-intensive businesses. Their families were often targets of kidnapping-for-ransom attacks. Kidnapping for ransom remains prevalent among the wealthy, where criminal syndicates typically take the time to investigate their targets and a gain a reasonable sense of surety that a high ransom demand could be met.

Riskier

Syndicates that previously preferred the armed robbery of highly valuable goods such as cellphones, either directly at stores or while the goods were in transit, have found that interventions, including by mobile operators, have made getting to those goods far riskier than in the past.

Meanwhile, the digitisation of cash has led to fewer business owners travelling with large amounts of physical currency, leaving the more secure cash-in-transit vehicles as one of the few remaining targets. The deterrent there, however, is an armoured vehicle and heavily armed security guards.

Read: Banking app kidnappings are on the rise in South Africa

Business owners still present as high-value targets for kidnapping-for-ransom or banking app transfer crimes. However, they tend to have a stronger security profile than the average middle-class citizen, who presents as an easy target to criminals.

“Criminals have had to change their modus operandi somehow, and so the dynamics have changed. But I don’t think we have adjusted our approach quickly enough to address the issue,” said Cameron.

During a visit to the White House by a South African delegation led by President Cyril Ramaphosa last month, the need for advanced technology to fight crime was an important part of the discussion.

But according to Cameron, the technological capacity of the various law-enforcement agencies in South Africa, including the police, is not the core issue. He said although there is room for additional capacity, there is sufficient technology to make a meaningful impact in the fight against crime. However, corruption – especially among the most powerful and highest paid police officials – is an obstacle to progress.

“We need to clean out a lot of the police management first. Unfortunately, we can have all the technology that we want, but if our leaders are not beyond reproach, then I’m afraid that no technology is going to solve the problem.”

Read: Discovery Bank launches panic code to combat banking app kidnappings

Cameron called for an integrated approach to fighting crime that involves multiple organs of state, including the South African Revenue Serivce and the department of justice. He said focusing on a prosecution-led agenda as opposed to the current approach, which emphasises the deployment of “boots on the ground”, would lead to better results over the long term. – © 2025 NewsCentral Media

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