Global cybercrime bust: There is hope in SA’s law enforcement

Since the advent of the cyber age, cops and robbers has never been the same.

No longer do the bad guys gallop around carrying big guns – criminal syndicates today breeze around in flashy cars and live the good life in mansions.

Robbing a bank in years of yore, had finite beginnings and endings. And such escapades usually ended with someone behind bars, or shot.

Whether Billy the Kid, or the notorious Stander gang in the ’80s, they all ultimately faced the long arm of the law.

These days, victims aren’t institutional and there is no insurance payout afterward.

Bandits are robbing little old ladies of their pensions, families of food on their tables and anyone else who comes across as remotely vulnerable online.

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The stick-ups are more subtle and predatory and happen in plain sight, daily. And cybercriminals are incredibly difficult to catch.

Global syndicates build complex business operations with rich pickings for seniors at the top of the food chain and equally handsome spoils with bottom-feeding call centre agents trained to seduce and butcher victims.

Yesterday’s raids in Joburg’s leafy northern suburbs nailed perpetrators at both ends of a scam that’s been running for years, and was the culmination of a meticulous probe and multi-venue simultaneous sting.

What’s more satisfying than seeing these propagators in cuffs is that the globally coordinated, multi-agency raid was planned, managed and executed with SA law enforcement and support agencies in the lead.

This is a timely reminder that not all our state institutions are dysfunctional and some play a significant role in global theatres.

Beyond the political rhetoric, which has been burning warm of late, there are parts of the SA system which are still held in high regard by the outside world.

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