[I received this email from a black co-worker. This hijacker was apparently interviewed on Carte Blanche which is a top-notch investigative TV journalism show on MNET. Jan]

Genre : Crime

Devi Sankaree Govender (Carte Blanche presenter): œHow many cars have you hijacked in your lifetime?

Jabu: œI can’t count them.

Devi: œHow many people have you killed?

Jabu: œMy crew killed almost couple people, but me only two.

Devi: œSo you’ve physically killed two people but when you were with your group there was a lot more.

Jabu: œJa, there was a lot more because there was a lot of resistance, you understand?

Thirty-six-year-old Jabu has spent nearly half of his life stealing cars – first as a car thief and then as a professional hijacker. He was one of an increasing number of young men who benefit the least from the lucrative hijacking industry despite taking the highest personal risks. It’s been a year, he says, since he last held a gun to a motorist’s head.

Devi: œThe biggest thing people complain about in South Africa – black, white, Indian, coloured, everybody -is crime. They say it would be a beautiful country, but we’re living in absolute fear of people like you.

Jabu: œIf you see we’re doing something bad to our country, what is the country doing to us? meaning people who have, why can’t they give those who don’t have? At the end of the day we have to put on our shoes, get down there on the street and do whatever we can to survive so that we can see future tomorrow.

Unlike many desperate hijackers, Jabu had a bursary for a B.Com, and a promising career lay ahead. But the glamorous lifestyle and the respect shown to successful car thieves lured him into a life of crime.

Jabu: œYou find one big guy in the city. Maybe he’s having guns or he’s like known. He’s driving nice cars, wearing chains… And they call themselves ‘Amagintsa’- they’ll be like coming to clubs, coming on the street with big sound, cars, going to clubs and drink so much beers with girlfriends around them; nice ladies, nice clothing, you understand? Then sometimes you became like brave, like (152)˜let me ask this guy what is he doing™.

Devi: œTell me about your first hijacking.

Jabu: œThat was a young Indian like you; she was like on a robot; and we were four, four guys approaching – three with guns and one intending to drive the car. We smashed the window, we open the door same time. We drove with her.

Devi: œWasn’t she scared?

Jabu: œShe was, of course… she even pee’d… she pee’d.

Devi: œBecause, I mean, the first thing you think is that you’re either going to be murdered or you’re going to be raped.

Jabu: œWe are not the same, we differs.

For Jabu there is a distinction between opportunists and professionals.

Jabu: œThere are these clever guys who do their work clean, smart – you understand? There are these guys who come there with many… you know, options like if it’s a nice looking lady automatically I’ll rape her, you understand? Those are more stranded, useless guys that we don’t call them robbers; those are thugs, you understand?

Devi: œAnd you see yourself as being different?

Jabu: œJa, because me, up to so far I’ve never like raped anyone.

According to Jenny Irish Qhobosheane hijackers do have a moral code. Jenny has been a well known crime researcher for 16 years and has spent the last five years researching organised crime networks with the help of the South African Institute for International Affairs. For her upcoming book she interviewed 20 hijackers.

Jenny Irish Qhobosheane (Crime Researcher): œSome of the hijackers will interfere with the people that own the vehicles or the passengers. Other hijackers say: (152)˜we’re professionals we don’t do that sort of thing™. So it varies and I always say to my husband, ‘If I get hijacked, let it be by a professional hijacker™. But, all hijackers, you need to understand that, if they feel at risk they will shoot first and ask questions afterwards.

Despite this ‘policy’, Jabu says that killing a target is short-sighted.

Jabu: œYou don’t have to kill that person, because you’ll be cutting off your bread, you understand? Cutting off your bread it’s like you won’t have another person to hijack tomorrow. Give the person another chance to survive, to live; so that the person can go back to work and buy another thing for you to eat tomorrow.

Jenny: œMiddle men and buyers don’t want to take a car where somebody has been killed in it. Also a lot of the hijackers I spoke to said if you killed somebody, the chances of the police being much more thorough in the investigation are much stronger. So often it is motivated by purely practical considerations.

We showed Jenny our interview with Jabu.

Jabu: œPeople who have are still having more good jobs, and people who doesn’t have, got even nothing to eat from.

Devi: œJenny what motivates someone to become a hijacker?

Jenny: œJabu spoke about need, and I think that there are there are a number of hijackers that get involved because of need; they can’t find jobs, etc. That need, because of their lifestyle expected, soon becomes greed. It is also about to be seen as a successful hijacker you have to live that lifestyle. That is how hijackers compete. You don’t find turf wars where hijackers shoot each other because: (152)˜you are on my turf now™. They compete with clothes and money they can throw around.

Devi: œMost hijackings are not random occurrences. In fact, they are well-planned, streamlined business operations where hijackers themselves work according to very tight deadlines. The terrifying fact is that, by the time you find that gun pointed at you, you are no longer a stranger to these men.

Jenny: œIn some of the more professional hijacking networks you have what they call (152)˜finger men™ and that may be someone at car registration. If you have a car on order, and particularly if it is a luxury vehicle, and there are not a huge amount of them on the road, you get their registration with where they live from somebody in the traffic department or from the banks and financing houses. It may even be somebody who is a neighbour or works in the neighbourhood.

Jabu: œAnd we like go to the malls wait by the malls. We see here is the car that we want. So we wait, buying water, buying a drink, just walking there around that mall until that person or the owner gets out where he is and drives off. After that we get in our car, then we drive following the person because that is the car that we want. We see where [is a person going]. How does it happen? We watch you each and every day going to your house, check all the surroundings, how is the place secured. And we, we check how you get inside the house – whether you buzz, you wait for the gate to open. We follow according to the days of when is the car needed. If it takes us a day to follow you, we’ll do it. If it takes us a day and a half we’ll do it. But towards the day of the car when it’s needed, we’ll be having the car from you. Definitely we’ll take it.

Gareth Crocker of Tracker says that their own research confirms the modus operandi that Jabu describes.

Gareth Crocker (Communication Manager: Tracker): œAround two thirds of all our activations – it’s an approximate figure, but around two thirds – with regards to hijacking, occur when people are leaving or arriving home.

Devi: œCan you look for the tracker device in a car?

Jabu: œIn the car? Definitely now we can. Most times we go like to the websites of security systems, alarm locks and everything.

Gareth: œYour hijacker of today is a lot more sophisticated than a hijacker of ten years ago. But obviously, as our industry has evolved, we have become a lot better at what we do, so we are able to clamp down on the hijacker a lot faster. It has forced them to become a lot more inventive in what they do.

Jenny: œYou will get a group that specialises in Toyotas, BMWs etc. It makes sense because then they get to know that vehicle, they get to know the tracking system, they know the security devices and they get to exploit a particular market with that vehicle.

Devi: œWhy does it take so many of you to hijack a car?

Jabu: œJust alike to robbery – you need two snappers standing to shoot anything that’s going to come around; a driver to take over from the owner; and a gunman pointing at the driver to get out to respond. And these other two, they’re not watching at the car; they’re watching on the oncoming people… who want to like respond towards the hijacking; whoever responds, they shoot.

Devi: œWhat about the cops?

Jabu: œNo, you know what? Let me tell you something. In Soweto, I’m telling you, more than hundred cops in all police stations [knows] me… If you want to get away with something, if you have to keep on killing people without being arrested, you have to get big guys, cops, or CIDs, investigators who are in that unit. And you give additional R1 000 on top someone’s salary, that is enough… not to be like searched, not to be arrested.

Once they’ve taken a car, the hijack gang is on high alert. They are ready for an encounter with the police or a tracking recovery crew. They will do whatever it takes to get the car to a chop shop where all identifying features are removed. Finally their payday arrives.

Jabu: œWe’ll end up with R1 000, R3 000, R2 000; it depend what car.

Devi: œThat doesn’t seem like a lot of money.

Jabu: œIt pays nothing. All the money that I’ve been doing I can’t show you even a cent of it.

Devi: œWhat would you do with the money?

Jabu: œIt just ends up like to ladies, to hotels. Boogying there in town, drinking, buying clothes nothing to bank, nothing to future.

Besides payment for the actual car, there’s additional loot: victims’ cellphones and handbags. Competing hijack crews publicly flaunt the day’s spoils. But with the cash spent quickly on the high life, the hijacker is soon back on the streets.

Devi: œIt’s not just the car because when you hijack somebody there is a handbag, there are cellphones, there is money – that is all just added extra. Who carries good stuff?

Jabu: œI read in a newspaper they said whites are the most targeted people to criminals… People are lying… blacks “ them! You’ll win from those people. Indians you’ll win from those people – they like fancy stuff; coloureds – those people carry money and jewellery and phones…

Devi: œWhich are the more popular cars?

Jabu: œThe ones most targeted? It’s Golfs.

Devi: What Golfs?

Jabu: œAny kind of a Golf.

Devi: œEven Chicos?

Jabu: œAny Golf…

Devi: œWhy?

Jabu: œ… and BMWs.

Devi: œNo wait. Wait why Golf?

Jabu: œBecause everyone is having Golf and it’s so difficult for cops to track down all Golfs…

Devi: œBMWs?

Jabu: œThe 3 series.

Dev: œThe new 3 series?

Jabu: œAll the 3 series, even the old one; they are all targets as well, because they are also same as Golf – guys are looking for those cars, and buyers are buying those cars.

According to Tracker, Jabu is spot on – the more popular a car is, the more likely it is to be hijacked.

Gareth: œPeople have this perception that if they drive a cheap little 1300 that they are safe. I am afraid to say that is not entirely true. The theft market is driven largely in this country by spare parts. So if you have got people driving cars that they can™t afford, main stream popular vehicles – I am talking across all the major brands – there is always going to be a market for those black market parts.

Jabu says there is a big demand for 4x4s among South Africa’s neighbours

Jabu: œThere’ll be somebody from that country coming to this side. And he’ll be organising the hijackers… to help him hijack the car and drive towards the border way. Sometimes if you got papers you drive over; even if you sometimes don’t have papers, you buy the police from the border gate, and you drive over the border gate.

Jenny: œA significant amount of vehicles, about 50 percent according to the police, go outside of the country. There are networks that specialise in trafficking vehicles across South African borders. They would go into southern African countries; some go further into Africa, and some even go to Europe. A car can be swapped for drugs; vehicles can be swapped for diamonds or whatever else. Vehicles have become a form of currency in Africa.

Devi: œWhat’s interesting about this entire hijacking chain is how easily stolen cars get re-absorbed into a legitimate system. It seems you and I could very easily be driving hijacked vehicles.

Devi: œTell me about the dealers. Are we talking about top-notch dealers or are we talking about spaza kind of dealers?

Jabu: œI’m talking about real Nissans, real VW, BMW dealers.

Devi: œBut are you saying that these dealerships would knowingly buy stolen cars?

Jabu: œExactly.

Gareth: œWe bust a dealership a few months ago. They were trading in stolen cars. We tracked one of our vehicles there; it was in his little chop shop in the back room. When we investigated, all his vehicles on the showroom had been stolen and re-filed and reprocessed. So yes, absolutely, it is happening.

Jabu says that sometimes it’s not your car that hijackers are after.

Jabu: œIf you’re not yet hijacked like you’re parking your car don’t show your bags; you must put your bag in your boot or don’t even show your cell phone when you jump off your car; either put it in your pocket, where it’s hidden. Because we can see it whilst sitting by the mall… and say: (152)˜oh! that’s a Sony Ericsson, that’s a latest Nokia, it cost R2 000™. Even if you don’t have a nice car, we might take your car just to get away with it, with your R2 000 phone.

Devi: œIf you’re hungry, you’ll do it?

Jabu: œIf we’re hungry, we’ll do it.

Devi: œWhat advice do you have for people? If we are hijacked, what do we do?

Jabu: œYou see a gun point on you don’t scream, don’t resist, don’t even run away… And be brave enough to hand over everything you have.

Jenny: œHijackers we spoke to said if I am driving a red Toyota Corolla, and they miss me for some reason, it is okay because there will be another red Toyota Corolla that now comes along the road just now and hijack that one or go to a shopping centre and identify one. But if it is not a common vehicle and it is on order, then they have got to get that one. So you need to know, if are driving one of those vehicles, hand it over to them because some of the hijackers said, in that instance, they will use violence because that vehicle is the vehicle they want.

Devi: œA lot of people are talking 2010.

Jabu: œ2010 will be there, and let’s hope there’ll be more jobs; because more jobs, less crime.

Devi: œIf there aren’t more jobs it means that

Jabu: œMore crime.

Devi: œTo foreigners?

Jabu: œTo whoever will be there – either foreigners or either you. So long as I see there’s food for me to eat, I’ll go and take it.

Devi: œBut look what it is doing to the country.

Jabu: œNo, you know what? That thing can also versa – what is the country doing to people?

Jabu says he has been out of the hijacking trade for a year. He now works in the hospitality industry earning a monthly salary that’s much lower than he used to get paid for a few hijackings.

Devi: œWhy aren’t you hijacking any more?

Jabu: œAt the end of the day it doesn’t pay for future. It pays now; short time money. That is the money that you never suffered for. It’s money that you just get now, you don’t work for it. And now it’s so easy for you to spend, even if it’s more than ten thousand, you’ll spend it same time because you’ve never suffered for it. Do you understand like how to suffer working 30 days; suffering every morning; waking up, bathing – routine for 30 days. Waiting for that five cent it’s more better because it’s giving you knowledge how to do it, how to budget. But quick cash, you know, just disappears.

Devi: œDo you ever think about those people who you killed? Like, when you go to bed at night?

Jabu: œJa, I do. But you know what? With me it’s like ‘it happened’ and I knew why I was doing that, you understand? That’s why most of the time I’m saying – I mean, I did it, so what?

Jenny: œWhen hijackers go out and hijack they know that there is a 50/50 percent chance that they could die themselves. So they become quite blase about life and death.

Devi: œIs hijacking ever going to end in South Africa?

Jabu: œNot now, it won’t. Because you people are buying cars, because you need cars. And we want money, and you come to us, so we’ll keep on stealing. So you better stop buying stolen goods.