The South African city taking aim at hijacking syndicates

Cape Town Mayoral Committee Member for Safety and Security, Alderman JP Smith, said that policing efforts need to focus more on shutting down the syndicates behind major crimes in South Africa, such as hijackings and extortions.

JP Smith made these comments after the City’s Metro Police’s Anti-Hijacking Unit arrested four suspects in a hijacking case on Sunday, 27 September.

The unit received a notification that a silver Toyota Corolla had been hijacked in the TT section of Site B in Khayelitsha.

Officers responded and located the vehicle at the intersection of Govan Mbeki Road and Oscar Mpetha Drive.

As they approached, two suspects abandoned the vehicle and fled on foot, while two others remained in the car. Officers pursued and arrested all four suspects, including a 15-year-old, who were taken to the Harare police station.

‘It is encouraging to see how effectively the anti-hijacking staff are responding to these incidents. It shows that, when these matters are reported to the City, we can take action,” said JP Smith.

“However, we cannot continuously be responding to hijackings and recovering vehicles. The syndicates behind these hijackings must be clamped down on and shut down, similar to the extortion syndicates plaguing these communities.”

“If SAPS is not willing to do so, then the City should be empowered to act.”

The City of Cape Town has been clamping down on organised criminal activities in the metro, including hijacking syndicates and “construction mafias.”

Construction mafias are armed groups that demand a cut of the funds set aside for infrastructure developments around South Africa.

They often claim to represent the interests of local businesses and taxi organisations, and threaten the workers employed by these projects.

South Africa’s national hijacking statistics also remain concerningly high, as 3,811 cases were reported to the South African Police Service (SAPS) in the first quarter of the 2026/2027 period.

This equates to an average of 41 cars hijacked every day over the three-month period from April to June 2026.

Organised criminal syndicates are behind many of these cases, often targeting popular vehicles that can be dismantled for spare parts or smuggled across the border into countries such as Zimbabwe, Mozambique, or Lesotho.

5 of South Africa’s most dangerous hijacking hotspots are in Cape Town

While Gauteng has by far the highest carjacking statistics of any province, other provinces have notable hotspots, mainly concentrated in large cities.

The police station that recorded the most hijackings in Q1 of the 2026/2027 period was Delft, located in Cape Town, which saw 93 cases.

Five Cape Town police stations made the SAPS’s top 30 list during the period under review, including Delft, Lingelethu West, Mfuleni, Khayelitsha, and Nyanga.

The Western Cape recorded a total of 548 hijackings in three months, making it the second-worst-affected province behind Gauteng, which experienced 2,207 cases.

Below are the SAPS top 30 police stations for carjackings in South Africa: