Car tracking employees allegedly helping car thieves in South Africa

The founder and owner of ChangeCars, Michael Pashut, has warned that criminals may be working with staff at vehicle tracking companies to identity and steal cars in South Africa.

These allegations stem from a January 2025 interview Pashut conducted with an anonymous insider known as Mr X, who claimed that workers at vehicle tracking businesses were complicit in many vehicle hijacking and theft incidents.

Pashut recently spoke on Cape Talk about the issue, where he cited the example of high-risk vehicles being stolen from parking lots.

“An individual pulls up in a Toyota Hilux, a Toyota Fortuner, and I used those examples as they are high-risk, well-stolen vehicles,” he said.

“The individual pulls up, parks, gets out of the car, and two minutes later another vehicle pulls up, individuals get out, they don’t break any windows, they simply walk up to the car and get in.”

He said this suggests that the thieves in these cases had access to a key fob, as well as information that allowed them to track, unlock, and steal the car in less than a minute.

Pashut added that Mr X made serious allegations about an issue that was not unique to one company, but was an industry-wide problem.

Mr X claimed that individuals working for tracking companies were approached by criminal syndicates and instructed to copy spare key codes for vehicles where they had installed tracking devices.

“You’ve got access to a spare key, it is that spare key that is coded with the same data that the brand new vehicle’s key has got. It can also be a second-hand vehicle,” Pashut said.

“That key is made available to, sadly, the wrong individuals, and it is that key that is used when the time comes to track the vehicle.”

Our sister publication MyBroadband contacted three of South Africa’s leading car tracking service providers to learn whether they were aware of such cases, but none of the companies responded by the time of publication.

‘Everyone needs a car tracker in South Africa’

In the original interview with Mr X, Pashut asked whether installing a tracker actually increased the vehicle’s risk of theft.

“I have two answers for that. I’d say yes and no. The whole purpose of having a tracking device is for monitoring purposes and recovery,” Mr X said.

“But, unfortunately, there is a darker secret to it. It affects the industry as a whole. It’s more or less all the companies that are involved.”

Cartrack previously told MyBroadband that tracking systems are a vital tool in South Africa.

This was after Toyota announced that its own connected-car systems were often more successful than dedicated tracking and recovery services provided by third parties.

Cartrack argued that internet-based systems in vehicles are easily accessed by maintenance staff by design, making it much easier for criminals to do the same.

“The criminal syndicates remove the entire telematics device. Therefore, it makes no difference what kind of SIM is in the device,” said the company.

“Further, these OEM systems have no anti-jamming technology and are fully reliant on cellular networks.”

It added that its fitment techniques make it harder to find their tracking devices, and that their service can track vehicles even outside of South Africa’s borders.