Car raiders look south for deals on wheels

Being friends with your neighbours is good, but not if it means losing your car.

This is the reality in the far north of KwaZulu-Natal, where stolen or hijacked vehicles are seldom recovered because police officers are determined to maintain a good relationship with Mozambique, South Africa's northern neighbour in that corner of the country.

Zulu monarch King Goodwill Zwelithini is furious about cross-border thefts, and so are dozens of businessmen and residents whose pleas for the government to intervene seem to have fallen on deaf ears.

The fence between the two countries is a flimsy barbed wire affair, and corruption at the border is endemic.

When a businessman, who had to travel to Mozambique five times to recover his stolen cars, complained to the police about his ordeal, the commander of the South African Police Service's international vehicle crime investigation unit, Colonel Madimetsa Mothle, lectured him about good relations with Mozambique.

Brazen cross-border crime syndicates, mostly from Mozambique, are terrorising communities in the border town of eManguzi in uMkhanyakude. Some crimelords even target vehicles in police compounds.

A policeman at Jozini said that on average, about eight to 12 cases of stolen or hijacked vehicles were registered daily in the uMkhanyakude district. Another policeman, in eManguzi about 100km away, said that between August and November, 48 vehicles were stolen from Jozini, eManguzi and Ingwavuma areas, including three from police stations where frightened residents had left them for safekeeping.

Only 16 of those were recovered. The rest were taken to Mozambique, he said.

Local farmer Siphamandla Simelane parked his new Hilux double cab at Jozini police station on August 10.

"About seven men stormed my house on August 10 in the middle of the night, demanded the car keys and tied me up. They left three others guarding me until 5am and in that time the others fetched the car from the police station and crossed the border," he said.

Some victims claim that when they try to recover their vehicles they are asked for exorbitant bribes by the Mozambican authorities, some working with their South African counterparts.

This is what Jozini businessman Elijah Mavundla learned when his two cars were hijacked in October last year.

It took him five months to recover his Mercedes-Benz C-Class and a Toyota Hilux double cab from Mozambique.

On October 15 last year, eight robbers stormed his home, tied up him, his wife and children, and then ransacked his home, taking cash, household goods - and his two cars.    

He ended up travelling to Mozambique five times, first alone and then with South African police officials.

Mozambican police authorities bluntly refused to return the cars when he tracked them to a police yard at Tsalamela Bridge near Ponta do Ouro. He used Mozambican connections to locate the cars.    

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His cars had gone through the Kosi Bay/Farazela border post and he claims local authorities must have been paid to get the cars across.

Mavundla detailed his woes to a letter written to President Jacob Zuma.

"The police in Mozambique told me that they cannot give me my cars and I must come back home to fetch the documents for the cars and come with the police from South Africa," he wrote to Zuma.

He eventually paid R10,000 demanded by Mozambican police officials because his cars "had been sold".

Mavundla was then told to fetch them from the Komatipoort border post in Mpumalanga four months later.

After pleading with the president, Mavundla received a cool response from Mothle.

"I would like to inform you that the relationship between the two countries do exist and it is treated with mutual respect," wrote Mothle in an e-mail.

"Mozambique as a sovereign state and member of SADC [the Southern African Development Community] does not promote criminal activities nor allow its citizens to commit any form of crime outside their republic. However, RSA appreciates the efforts made by Mozambique police of intercepting the stolen vehicles and kept [sic] them safe at their police station."

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Mavundla said he called Mothle and took issue with his e-mail and the policeman lectured him on South Africa's "good relations" with Mozambique.

He had not received a reply from the president, he said.

Presidential spokesman Bongani Ngqulunga said he would check for a record of Mavundla's complaint.

Repeated phone and e-mail inquiries to the Mozambican consulate in Durban went unanswered.

King Zwelithini recently spoke out strongly about cross-border hijackings at his Enyokeni Palace during a meeting with traditional leaders that was attended by Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba.

"People are forced at gunpoint to go and fetch their vehicles in police stations where they keep them out of fear of being hijacked."

In October, a vehicle belonging to the king was shot at by hijackers in Eshowe, but the driver got away.

That same month KwaZulu-Natal premier Willies Mchunu told Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan the province needed R128-million to deal with cross-border crime, "which threatens the welfare of citizens".

Legislation was pending that would rationalise the work of security agencies and help fight cross-border crime more efficiently, home affairs spokesman Mayihlome Tshwete said.

olifantn@sundaytimes.co.za and mthwethwab@sundaytimes.co.za