Business-owned vehicles, ranging from cargo trucks with trailers to courier vehicles delivering items ordered online, have become a soft target for hijackings.
This was mainly in the Western and Eastern Cape, according to the Tracker Vehicle Crime Index.
The index showed that crime aimed at these vehicles proves highly lucrative, with the objective mainly to acquire the goods being transported. The report is for the period of January to June 2024.
Meanwhile, the index revealed that while vehicle theft was at 46%, hijackings still dominated stats at a whopping 54%.
Tracker said data indicates that in the Eastern Cape a personal vehicle is four times likelier to be hijacked than stolen.
“Moreover, it is nine times likelier for a business-owned vehicle to be hijacked rather than stolen in the province,” explained Tracker chief operating officer, Duma Ngcobo.
“Plus, the highest propensity toward business vehicle crime occurs in the Eastern Cape, with 43% over-representation relative to Tracker’s business-owned vehicle subscriber base.“
He said a similar trend was observed in the Western Cape with a slant towards hijacking rather than theft.
He said a personal vehicle is almost twice as likely to be hijacked than stolen.
“A personally-owned vehicle in the Western Cape also has a higher propensity to vehicle crime at 22% over-representation relative to Tracker’s subscriber base,” Ngcobo said.
“For a business-owned vehicle there is statistically lower vehicle crime relative to Tracker’s business subscriber base in the Western Cape, yet it is four times likelier to be hijacked than stolen.”
The index report showed that while hijacking also dominates total business vehicle crime nationally at 65%, bucking the trend, vehicle crime for personal vehicles leans towards theft at 52% nationally.
This means that nationwide, the likelihood of vehicle crime being a hijacking rather than a theft is 34% higher for business vehicles compared to personal vehicles. Business-owned vehicles are also 45% more likely to experience vehicle crime compared to personal vehicles.
The province of Gauteng still shows the highest volume of vehicle crime — 58% of the total vehicle crime incidents, which is significantly over-representative of Tracker’s Gauteng vehicle subscriber base.
While 51% of all nationwide hijackings occur in Gauteng due to vehicle volumes, Gauteng experiences more theft at 53% versus hijacking at 47%.
The index report also revealed that most hijackings are due to take place on Fridays between 4pm and 8pm while theft is mainly reported between 11am and 3pm on Saturdays.
Ngcobo said crime tends to shift across provinces over time, and there are different levels of crime based on the sophistication of the crime syndicates in the province.
He said at the moment, theft in Gauteng is greater than hijacking most likely due to syndicates using keyless entry attacks to steal vehicles.
“More concerning is that crime along the N2 corridor towards Gqeberha has significantly increased. Given the economic situation in the Eastern Cape, a province with significant unemployment, this is most likely opportunistic crime,” said Ngcobo.
“In other words, the hijacking and looting of bounty on the back of trucks or in delivery vehicles, with a view to converting this into quick, easy, untraceable cash.”