Business-owned vehicles are nine times more likely to be hijacked rather than stolen in the Eastern Cape in South Africa.
This is according to new data from Tracker’s Vehicle Crime Index for the first half of 2024, which compiles information gathered from the tracking company’s more than 1.1 million clients.
The index highlighted concerning trends in criminal activity with the types of cars being targeted for hijacking or theft in different provinces.
What’s at risk
At a national level, hijackings are still the dominant form of vehicle crime, taking up 54% of cases compared to theft at 46%.
One of the worst-affected provinces is the Eastern Cape, where a personal car is four times more likely to be hijacked than stolen.
While this is already a worrying figure, it’s much more severe for business-owned vehicles like cargo trucks and delivery vans, which are nine times more at risk of being hijacked.
The Eastern Cape has a much higher propensity for these types of crimes than other provinces in South Africa, with business vehicle hijackings being 43% over-represented relative to Tracker’s subscriber base.
Within the province, the N2 highway has been flagged as a particular area of concern by Tracker COO Duma Ngcobo.
In an interview with Moneyweb, Ngcobo stated that the trend emerged following the Covid-19 pandemic when there was a huge spike in e-commerce and courier usage.
Consequently, there are now far more business vehicles transporting valuable packages on major corridors like the N2 towards Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth), and these goods can be quickly sold for untraceable cash.
This issue is exacerbated in provinces like the Eastern Cape with poor economic activity and high unemployment, indicating that many of the hijackings being reported are opportunistic crimes.
Tracker hijackings & theft data for the first half of 2024
While hijackings are still higher than thefts in most provinces, the data is skewed more towards private than business-owned vehicles in regions like the Western Cape and Gauteng.
In the Western Cape, a personal set of wheels is twice as likely to be hijacked than stolen, and these types of crimes are 22% over-represented relative to Tracker’s database.
Working vehicles are still four times as likely to be carjacked, but these incidents are proportionally lower in the Western Cape compared to other provinces in South Africa.
Gauteng experiences the highest levels of vehicle crime on average, accounting for 58% of all cases reported in the country.
While this is partially explained by the fact that Gauteng has the highest volume of cars on the road, these statistics are still over-represented as a proportion of Tracker’s provincial client base.
Interestingly, theft is more common than hijackings at 53% vs 47%, and a large number of these incidents involve keyless entry relay attacks.
This indicates that thieves in wealthier provinces like Gauteng and the Western Cape are primarily going after high-end private models for a particular reason, while hijackers in areas that are struggling economically are acting based on opportunities to make a quick buck off stolen goods.
“Crime tends to shift across provinces over time, and there are different levels of crime based on the sophistication of the crime syndicates in the province,” said Ngcobo.
Tracker noted that a higher proportion of hijackings occur on Fridays between 16h00 and 20h00, while theft is more likely to take place on Saturdays between 11h00 and 15h00.
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