Some long distance truck drivers are at the centre of police investigations following frequent staged hijackings in which local companies are losing millions of pula.
Caratex Botswana is among the list of companies that have lost millions of pula due to staged hijackings.
Sunday Standard has been informed that some long distance local truck drivers, who transport goods between Botswana and South Africa, are suspected of conniving with dangerous hijackers in South Africa.
It is understood that after they have staged the hijacking, the drivers would then go to report the matter to the SAPS who recently nailed two local drivers in connection with such incidents.
Two Botswana drivers are reported to be at the centre of investigations by the South African Police Service after they allegedly staged hijackings.
It is said that most of the goods are rarely recovered.
The Executive Director of Caratax told Sunday Standard that recently they lost over P2, 6 million due to hijackings.
He said they recently hired a certain company to transport their goods to Durban but it was hijacked before it reached its customers.
“This is the second incident to hit Caratex; in the first incident, sometime last year, our goods worth close to P1,5 million were reported stolen from a hijacked truck but since then, we have not recovered anything,” he said.
He said these incidents have affected his company badly because they lost huge amounts of money in a very short space of time.
He further said they are considering the use of their own trucks that might reduce such suspicious hijackings, even though they have a small number of trucks.
In a brief telephone interview, South African Police Service spokesperson in Gauteng province, Tomi Golding, confirmed the hijackings.
“We suspect that some of the hijackings are staged by drivers,” she said.
However, Detective Assistant Superintendent, Penyoitsele Nnanaakoko, of motor vehicle theft unit at Serious Crime Squad, said the SAPS had been notified them about truck hijacking but declined to comment further.
