Scorpions add sting to anti-hijack tale

THE SPECIALIST Scorpion crime-fighting unit has joined hands with the trucking industry to create an information data-base in its battle against the hijacking scourge.
This in the face of allegations that this year’s disbandment of the anti-hijacking squad is already having an impact on the trucking industry’s efforts to combat this billion-rand-a-year criminal spree.
Information on the likes of the latest hijack hot-spots is now being thinly spread around the country’s police stations, according to Isobel Louw, m.d. of Roadwing and a driving force behind the public/private sector anti-crime drive in the City Deep and Kaserne areas of Johannesburg.
All the reports of truck hijacking were previously routed to the offices of the specialist anti-hijack squad, and information on combat methods centralised.
ÒBut now the trucking company must report at the nearest station to the scene of the crime, and this immediately means the information is being decentralised (and lost),’ says Louw.
ÒThis means that you’ve got to build up a relationship with an officer at every police station in the country.’
It is an impossibility which makes centralised data on the subject of
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