Valhalla almost free of cable theft
The minimum jail sentence for cable theft is now 10 years imprisonment.
Cable theft in Centurion, especially Valhalla, has plagued residents this year.
Resident Alta Smit regularly patrols the area at night with her sister and said thieves knew what times to target the area.
She said thieves bundled the cables before transportation.
She said thieves jumped over the wall of Zwartkop air force base, cut the cables and threw them back over the wall.
Smit said residents could not walk around Valhalla after dark any longer because there were no street lights.
Despite this, Valhalla residents and the CPF have had a few successes in capturing the offenders.
In a recent statement, ward councillor Ina Strijdom said there had been a definite decline in overhead cable theft in Valhalla.
Also read: Three men arrested for cable theft and drugs
“If you look at the statistics, there were about seven cable theft incidents per week in Valhalla,” said Strijdom.
“This has come down to one incident during the last three weeks.”
Strijdom said all the successes were because of resident and CPF participation as well as the metro police special projects cable theft unit.
“The metro police team made 42 arrests in the past 2 months.”
“During October, they made 13 arrests and in November 29.”
She said the team also prevented 57 thefts by disturbing the thieves while they were in the process of stealing.
More than two tons of cables for October and November were recovered from cable thieves as well as scrap metal dealers.
“The cable theft team has been guarding critical installations such as the water works and sewer plant and not a single incident has taken place at the installations they guarded.”
Also read: Three arrested for suspected cable theft
Strijdom said it was clear the message has spread that this team is very active and it is no longer easy to steal cables in Tshwane.
She said tougher punishment would be introduced as the minimum sentence for cable theft had been changed to 10 years’ imprisonment.
“The DA-run metro sees cable theft as economic sabotage and this cable theft team will get an additional 38 members as well as additional vehicles as of January 2017.”
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