In other cases a Beeld poster was recently changed from “ENB sê die ANC” to “ENB sê f** die ANC” on Monday, while a poster from the Sowetan on  January 11, 2013 was changed to read “F**ks release tar”.

These changes were mostly made to posters  in John Vorster Drive in Centurion.

The newspaper industry has previously had problems in this area but it had not happened for a while, until a few weeks ago.

Beeld newspaper laid a charge at the Lyttelton police station last year after receiving  complaints that swearwords had appeared on their posters.

“It doesn’t only bring Beeld’s good name into disrepute, but also has a negative impact on our credibility,” Sarel van der Walt, assistant editor of Beeld, said. “Up close it is easy to see someone has tampered with the poster, but from far away it looks like the real thing.”

“Some of the posters make no sense, but the Beeld  one  on Monday about FNB and the ANC are very bad for the industry,” Thinus Prinsloo, distribution manager for The Citizen, said.

Police spokesman Warrant Officer Hero Gumbu said no one had been arrested in connection with these crimes, but the police were keeping a close eye on the situation.