Police to get tough on izinyoka
Police will be visiting scrap yards in the community in a fight against copper cable theft.
Soshanguve police are determined to get tough on izinyoka (cable thieves), and will be visiting scrapyards in the community in the fight against the theft of railway and telecom copper cables.
This comes after a new law came into effect this week, introducing longer prison sentences for cable thieves than for murderers.
Rietgat police spokesperson Warrant Officer Lolo Mangena said police were determined to fight the cable thieves.
Theft of valuable copper cables has wreaked havoc across the community in recent years.
Mangena said police had joined hands with Eskom and Telkom in a coordinated crackdown on the theft of metals.
He said police would target hotspots such as railway and telecommunication lines.
The Criminal Matters Amendment Act, which came into force on Tuesday, imposed harsher sentences and bail conditions for people convicted of damaging infrastructure
“We have always been concerned about cable theft. This new law will help us in our efforts to stop criminals from making copper theft their hobby,” said Mangena.
Recently, Reietgat police arrested a 33-year-old man in connection with the theft of copper cables and an overhead conductor from power utility Eskom.
Mangena said the arrest came after the police followed up on a tip-off about a man selling scrap cables to a scrap dealer in Winterveldt.
Suspected stolen items were found with an estimated value of R7 000.
Eskom recently said in a statement that it was plagued by network equipment theft.
“The value of material stolen remains a serious concern as it is indicative of organised, syndicate-driven criminal activity in the conductor theft environment, which is also experienced by other state-owned enterprises,” said Eskom in a statement.
Now the new law creates new offences: damaging infrastructure to disrupt the provision of essential services, whether publicly or privately owned, and tampering with basic service infrastructure.
Many power and water outages, phone problems and Metrorail and Gautrain delays are due to cable theft.
The law also introduces stricter bail criteria for copper theft.
Eskom this year estimated that the country paid R4 billion to replace stolen copper cable.
The law stipulates that scrapyards must keep a register of sellers and their contact details to enable the authorities to trace the origin of the scrap metal.
Mangena encouraged the public to send anonymous tip-offs to the Eskom crime reporting line on 0800 11 2722 or via the SAPS crime stop number on 10111.
Also read:
Four men arrested for copper cable theft
Police nab two for stolen copper cables
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