CASH IN TRANSIT

South Africa’s cash-intransit (CIT) industry: new trends and solutions as the country’s leaders combine against brutal and ongoing CIT attacks

Following the strapping of a bomb onto a cash-in-transit guard in Cape Town by armed attackers in January 2021 – a shocking first-of-its-kind for South Africa, reportedly – the safety of CIT employees is in the spotlight as never before.

Fleetcam™ surveillance and tracking system in iziCash armoured vehicle.

And so are the challenges in a crime category characterised by methodical planning and often extreme violence, says Grant Clark, head of the Cash-in-Transit Association of South Africa (CITASA). Warning of a likely escalation on the back of a number of factors including radicalism, a deeply troubled economy, high levels of unemployment, undersecured borders and a stretched police force, it’s more critical than ever for major players to work together to save lives and protect the economy, he says. To this end, the CITASA JOIC (Joint Operations Intelligence Centre) is partnering closely with key role players such as the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), the South African Police Service (SAPS), the Directorate for Priority Crime investigation (the Hawks) and leading CIT companies.

According to Marlene Welman, Manager of the JOIC, CIT incidents decreased by 3% for the period of January to April in 2021, before ratcheting up by 700% in the days following. In total, 2020 saw a total of 293 CIT incidents in South Africa. At the time of writing this article, seventy-four incidents had already occurred throughout the country during 2021.

In April, this year alone, there have been a spate of attacks on CIT vans around South Africa, among these, in Dobsonville, Johannesburg and Gugulethu in the Western Cape on 12 April (the former injuring three guards, the latter claiming the life of one guard and wounding three of his colleagues) and at an unnamed shopping mall in KwaZulu-Natal on 20 April, which critically injured a police officer and a guard.

The global CIT security market

According to a report by global market research firm Research And Markets, the international armoured vehicle market is poised for growth at a rate of 3,7 per cent a year until 2030, on the back of increasing cross-border conflicts, defense spending and what it calls ‘asymmetric warfare’ (defined by the RAND Research Corporation as ‘conflicts between nations or groups that have disparate military capabilities and strategies - with some of the best-known examples being the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the war in Afghanistan’ 1 .

The report “Global Armored Vehicle Market 2020-2030 by Armor (Passive, Active), Drive Type (Wheeled, Tracked), Category (Conventional, Electric), Vehicle Type, Application and Region: Trend Forecast and Growth Opportunity” 2 predicts that by 2030, this specialised market will be worth an astronomical $24.85 billion.

Modus operandi

Marlene Welman of the JOIC divides CIT attack modus operandi into two types: vehicle-on-road, and cross-pavement. In the first scenario, she says that suspects either shoot at the AV (armoured vehicle) and its tyres to make it stop, or they ram it with another vehicle and then proceed to bomb it open. Perpetrator numbers vary between 10-25 in these assaults. When it comes to cross-pavement attacks, she says that most take place between exiting the mall/shop and loading cash into the CIT vehicle, with the number of perpetrators ranging from two to seven people.

Air support is a major deterrent in preventing cash heists.

Innovation is key Product

innovation is key when it comes to protecting staff, customers and assets, say experts.

Schott AG, a specialist glass manufacturer, headquartered in Germany, in its article: “In a case full of cash” 3 says “criminals looking to earn extra money by robbing banks, retailers, cash machines (ATMs) or cash-in-transit companies, are going to find it increasingly difficult, as a result of innovations such as state-of-the-art cash carrying boxes.“ ”The boxes are not just impossible to crack,” says Hermann Tietze, Regional Sales Director EMEA for Technical Tubing at SCHOTT AG, “they are also equipped with intelligent security systems that contain time locks, multiple sensors and radio frequency identification (RFID). All non-expected events such as forced entry, abnormal temperature variations, electromagnetic fields or electrostatic discharges, gas or liquid presence – will trigger a loud siren, accompanied by dense red smoke and positioning with the aid of GPS-GPRS locating signals.

“At the heart of the system,” he continues, “is Schott’s rectangularshaped ink cartridges which, when detonated, immediately saturate bank notes with indelible purple ink, rendering them completely worthless. It’s exciting and inspiring to enable new applications that meet such high requirements,” says Tietze. “Normally, our glass needs to be as durable and strong as possible. With these ink cartridges, however, our tubes are expected to break quickly and evenly, without getting damaged during manufacturing or while they are being transported… these glass ink containers making stolen bank notes unusable for criminals acts as a deterrent and could well prevent acts of violence.”

One of South Africa’s most effective tools, when it comes to reducing cash-in-transit attacks, is the PUDU, originally developed by the CSIR (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research) in 2002. The name is an acronym of ‘polyurethane dispensing unit’, a sense-and-deploy device that dispenses quick-drying, solidifying polyurethane foam into the vault area of cash-in-transit vehicles when they are attacked. “The polyurethane covers the cash in the vehicle’s vault and makes it impossible for attackers to retrieve the transported assets from the vehicle,” explains Delon Mudaly, a CSIR manager of intellectual property and technology transfer for materials science and manufacturing 4 . Originally developed by the CSIR, for SBV Services in South Africa, to supplement the armour-plating and bullet-proofing on CIT vehicles, it protects the assets inside and may be activated in various ways, in line with clients’ requirements.

Cash-in-transit attacks do not only aggravate the devastating effect that the Covid-19 pandemic has already had on the economy, but they also inflict terrible hardship on employees in this critically important sector.

“With cash being the lifeblood of the South African economy, we have to do our utmost to curb these violent attacks on a sector in which some of our most vulnerable fellow citizens earn their living,” maintains Albert Erasmus, CEO of iziCash Solutions, which provides specialist cash logistics and cash management services to a wide range of businesses that trade with cash throughout the country. It is this that is behind his company’s recent partnership with Fleetcam ™ . “With Fleetcam’s integrated surveillance and intelligent vehicle and guard tracking system, we have upgraded our defences in order to mitigate, attacks,” he says, pointing out that cash-in-transit attacks do not only aggravate the devastating effect that the Covid-19 pandemic has already had on the economy, but also inflict terrible hardship on employees in this critically important sector.

“With cash being the lifeblood of the South African economy, we have to do our utmost to curb these violent attacks on a sector in which some ofour most vulnerable fellow citizens earn their living.”

Collaboration: never more important than now

“Never before has collaboration been more essential,” concludes Nischal Mewalall, CEO of SABRIC (South African Banking Risk Information Centre). “These robberies have the potential to severely worsen our economy which is already under pressure due to Covid-19. The CIT industry must be commended for its proactive approach and SABRIC remains fully committed to supporting all initiatives to enable the fight against this scourge.”

1. https://www.rand.org/topics/asymmetricwarfare.html

2. https://www.researchandmarkets.com/ reports/5239748/global-armored-vehiclemarket-2020-2030-by-armor?utm_ source=CI&utm_medium=PressRelease&utm_ code=lc4vvn&utm_campaign=1498075+- +Outlook+on+the+Armored+Vehicle+Global +Market+to+2030+-+Trend+Forecast+and+ Growth+Opportunity&utm_exec=jamu273prd

3. https://www.schott.com/innovation/en/ in-a-case-full-of-cash/

4. https://www.csir.co.za/sites/default/files/ Sciencescope_February2013.pdf