Repentant Car Hijacker Explains How it is Done
It’s amazing some of the articles that get circulated around on email – thanks to Del for this one – which is supposedly an interview with a Hijacker by the Star’s Motoring Editor Dennis Droppa. After doing a little reseach, we found the second article below by Anna Crox – we have contacted Dennis to find out if he can give us some more info on the article which was published last year Ju…
ly/August in The Star.
A repentant car hijacker (28) stole and hijacked cars for more than 14 years before deciding to go straight. Now he is a struggling fashion designer who presents motivational talks at schools in Orange Farm, south of Joburg, discouraging youngsters from doing crime. He spoke to Denis Droppa about the murky world of vehicle crime.
Q. 1: Are most cars hijacked on order by syndicates?
Answer: Yes, I would get a phone call to deliver a certain type of car by a certain deadline, and then we’d go out and search for one. If they needed it quickly, I would hijack. If I had a bit more time I’d steal a parked car, as it was safer.
Q. 2: Which types of vehicles are the most popular amongst hijackers?
Answer: We would get orders to steal just about anything. Double-cab bakkies, any make, were in very high demand. Also, “G-strings” (BMW 3-series), Polo’s, Mercedes and Toyotas. I’d get paid a lot more for a double-cab, around R16 000, but only about R500 to R6 000 for a car.
If it was an expensive car like the “Anaconda” (BMW 7-series) I could get about 15 grand, though.
Q. 3: Which cars have the lowest hijack risk?
Answer: There’s no such thing. There’s a demand for all sorts of cars, old and new. If the vehicle isn’t sold then it’s stripped for spares.
The only thing there isn’t really an interest in is expensive exotics.
I once stole a Ferrari from a garage just for fun, drove it around for a while and then left it back at the garage.
Q. 4: Do most of the cars that aren’t stripped end up beyond our borders?
Answer: No, a lot stay in the country. They are given new identities, re-registered and sold here
Q. 5: How effective are modern anti-theft and tracking systems?
Answer: When I was stealing cars three years ago, most of them were a joke. I could break into almost any car and drive it away within minutes. Some cars were very advanced and a lot of work to steal though, like Volvos. With tracking systems, it was usually very easy
to find where the device was hidden. While one guy drove the car, his accomplices would strip the interior looking for the tracker’s hiding place. Then sometimes we’d place the tracking unit into a taxi and trick the police and the helicopters into following the taxi. Nowadays
the tracking systems are getting a lot better though, with quicker response times, and towards the end I nearly got caught a couple of times.
Q. 6: How did you learn how to override these high-tech systems?
Answer: Experience, and learning from other car thieves. We all shared information! If I was having difficulty with a particular car, sometimes I’d dress up nicely and go to a dealer posing as a customer. I’d ask the salesman how good the anti-theft system was on that car
and he would give me all the details.
Q. 7: What was your hijacking modus operandi?
Answer: We would get people in their driveways, on the way to work or on their way home. Rainy weather is the best time to steal cars. When it’s raining it makes it more difficult for the tracking helicopters to find you.
Q. 8: In a hijacking did you normally go for soft targets like women?
Answer: No, I could take on anyone. I was a professional. Some people wore guns but never got a chance to use them as I was too fast. I’d stick my gun right in their faces and they wouldn’t give me any trouble.
That’s why I never shot or hurt anyone; I was against that. A friend of mine sometimes shot people he hijacked and he used to wake up with nightmares.
Q. 9: Which area’s did you target?
Answer: Any white suburb , it didn’t matter. I never stole in the townships because people were poor there. I also didn’t rob black people.
Q 10: Is that because you don’t like whites?
Answer: No, it’s because darkies are dangerous. If you rob them, they go to a sangoma who would “take care” of you.
Q. 11: How much money did you make?
Answer: A lot, but I wasted it all. It was easy come, easy go. Some money would go to police and judges and prison officials in bribes. I got caught a few times but was never convicted. Bribing a police officer to lose a docket cost about R2 000 to R5 000. The only time I
spent in jail was awaiting trial. Then I’d bribe the prison guard to help me escape.
Q. 12: Is this the norm, or were you lucky?
Answer: I knew how to find the loopholes and beat the system. Some of my friends were caught and convicted to 8 or 12 years or more.
Q. 13: What made you stop crime?
Answer: I saw I had nothing to show for all those years. I felt guilty for what I’d done and wanted to achieve something in my life. That’s why I do community work persuading other people not to do crime, and I’m also a fashion designer. I’m struggling with money now. My sewing machine broke and I can’t afford to fix it, but I won’t go back to crime. That life is a stupid life.
Q. 14: What is your advice to motorists to avoid hijacking?
Answer: Look out for people following you. Some hijackers spot a car they want and follow the person home. Be aware. If you’re suspicious, make a few false turns and see if that car is still behind you. If it is, drive to a police station.
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CRIME PAYS – BRIBERY AND CORRUPTION
An Inside Look at Crime in South Africa
Anna Cox
Just because someone is a car hijacker doesn’t mean he isn’t religious.
So says 28-year-old Rashid Bin Salim, of Orange Farm, who ended his life of crime last year, reformed and is now a struggling fashion designer and community worker.
A Muslim, he says he used to pray to God every morning to send him a victim in a bakkie. This is because a stolen car would fetch only R500, but he could get R12000 for a bakkie or a truck.
He and his gang would scout the suburbs for bakkies, watch the owner’s movements for a few days and then strike.
“I know how the legal system works. I know the loopholes and always found them”. Bin Salim says he hijacked so many vehicles that he can’t remember the number. It certainly is more than 200, he says.
He was never convicted in 14 years of crime, he claims, because he bribed “hundreds” of police officers to “lose” his files. He only ever spent time in jail as an awaiting-trial prisoner, and the longest stretch he served was nine months.
He says his sentences would probably have reached about a collective 40 years in prison.
“It was easy. I offered the investigating officers anything between R2 000 and R5 000 and the docket was lost. With that gone, there was no case against me and I was released time after time. After all these years, I know how the legal system works. I know the loopholes and always found them.”
He also frequently bribed prison officials to let him out of prison while he was awaiting trial.
“Hijacking someone is easy”
“When I got sick and tired of sitting there waiting for trial, I would bribe them to open the doors. They used to hide me in the kitchens and then open up for me at night when everyone was sleeping. That would cost me R2 000,” he says.
He stopped his criminality completely about a year ago when he started the Zithuthukiseni Basha group for former criminals and ex-convicts. About 115 of them are trying to turn their lives around, attending a variety of classes, ranging from literacy to life skills.
Bin Salim was born in Rosettenville, Johannesburg, and then moved to Durban to study at an Islamic school. But he couldn’t study further because his parents couldn’t afford it. He later went to live with his grandmother in Soweto, where his life of crime began.
“I started criminal school there. The gang members taught me how to strip cars when I was 13 and soon I was charging R600 to disconnect alarms and trackers. From that I went on to hijacking because there was more money.”
“Hijacking someone is easy. People have to stop at gates and wait for them to be opened, or get out to open them, and that is when I would ask them for their cars. I was always polite and never injured anyone.”
“I would just ask them to start their car so that I could avoid the anti-hijacking system. No one ever refused to give me their vehicle.”
“Sometimes we would make the men take their clothes off so that it would take them more time to report us. I was scared in case they had guns. One of my friends was shot dead by his victim.”
Tracking systems are a joke, he says. “While my friend was driving away from the hijacking, I would disconnect the wires – it takes less than two minutes. Then we would play with the police and the tracking companies.”
“We would give the SIM card to children in the township to play with, or drop it on the floor of a taxi, and the police and tracking helicopters would swoop, only to find that they had been tricked.”
He would get orders on a daily basis from syndicates. Sometimes it was four vehicles a day, other times only one.
He made an average of R50000 a month, but as quickly as it came in, it was spent.
“Because I never worked for it, I never appreciated it and within a few hours I would spend R12 000 on clothes and shoes, on gifts for my girlfriend and in the shebeens.”
Last year, Bin Salim decided to end his criminal ways. “I have to set an example to my younger brother. I heard him tell one of his friends he was fighting with that he would get me to kill him. I didn’t like that.”
“I also didn’t like the fact that people would avoid me in the streets. I am not a leper, I am a human being.”
When asked if his criminal activities went against religious principles, he says that just because he was a criminal didn’t mean he stopped believing in God.
“I used to pray every morning to God to send me someone in a bakkie so that I would have money to spend that day. I didn’t stop believing in God just because I was a criminal.”
“This criminal life was not supposed to be mine. It is the result of poverty that my parents had no money to educate me. I am a clever person. I asked myself what I wanted and I decided I wanted to help myself and the community.
“Crime doesn’t pay. I have nothing left. I am happy I am out.”
“I want to sweat for my money now and use my talent.”
Bin Salim does motivational talks at 23 schools in the Orange Farm area, discouraging youngsters from doing crime. He says that since the group was started, crime in the area has dropped dramatically.
[This article was originally published on page 5 of The Star on July 27, 2004]
PIC courtesy of Advanced Driving School.
