Highway Robberies Terrorize S. Africans

What distinguished the heist in this affluent Johannesburg suburb from a rash of others across South Africa was the blood in the street.

It was running from the bad guys for a change.

Three would-be robbers were gunned down this week by police officers and security guards after a failed attempt to hold up an armored vehicle. The late-morning shootout sent bullets flying through the nearby industrial park, grazing cars and whistling past office workers at their desks.

The besieged security guards admitted to the fright of a lifetime, but they were jubilant nonetheless: In the past year, at least 35 guards hauling cash have been killed and scores injured in heists that have netted robbers more than $20 million in rand, the South African currency.

Last week, five guards were injured in an attack near the eastern port of Durban while dozens of their despairing colleagues were in the streets of Johannesburg demanding an end to the madness.

“It has had a horrific effect on morale,” said Collin Gregor, managing director of SBV Security, a cash-transport company that dispatches 300 vehicles with billions of rand a day. “The attacks are all violent and done with military precision. They shoot first and ask questions later.”

This is a country with a crime story around every corner, but the brazenness and precision of the recent heists have elevated concerns about the roadside terror to top government offices.

Investigators suspect that the masterminds behind the attacks--233 during the first nine months of 1997--include former soldiers from Umkhonto we Sizwe, or MK, the military wing of the African National Congress during its banned years under apartheid.

Although police have not cracked the inner circle of the syndicate, they have made more than a dozen arrests, including former MK soldiers, police officers and former South African National Defense Force soldiers.

“There are a large number of these MKs in the country, and some of them are disillusioned with the way things have turned out,” said Bushie Engelbrecht, a senior detective investigating the heists. “They fought the struggle against the old government and won. But now they are sabotaging the present government.”

And they are doing it with astounding audacity.

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In one of the most sensational attacks, 15 men with AK47 rifles opened fire last month on an armored vehicle on South Africa’s most heavily traveled freeway during the morning rush hour. The robbers, riding in pickup trucks, fired more than 100 rounds, flattening the tires of the money van and striking passing vehicles. The attackers made off with nearly $700,000 in less than five minutes, while empty-handed police were left making public appeals to commuters to turn in bullets found lodged in their cars.

In another heist, in December, gunmen dropped a spiked chain across a highway and lay in wait. Six security guards died when their out-of-control vehicle crashed into a 15-ton truck; the gunmen escaped with more than $2 million.

“These are like mass attacks of an army,” said Mary Robertson, head of a trauma center where heist victims have turned for counseling. “They have made people feel vulnerable and powerless.”

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Officials with the ANC-led government have tried to downplay the involvement of former MK soldiers, emphasizing that most MK members are productive citizens, many in leading government and business roles.

Engelbrecht, the detective, said former MK soldiers are providing crucial assistance in the police investigation.

But officials have been hard pressed to explain the appearance of fugitive Collin Chauke, a former MK cadre and a suspected kingpin of the heists, at a birthday party last month for a deputy Cabinet minister. Chauke, who had been held in connection with a $2.5-million holdup before his escape, left the party before police arrived.