A suspect captured on video snatching a cell phone from a woman arriving at an establishment in Brooklyn, east of Pretoria, has been arrested and released on bail. The arrest followed the swift circulation of the footage on social media, which led to the assailant’s identification.
The incident highlights what crime analyst Thabang Bogopa describes as a pervasive and underreported crime trend across South Africa. In an interview, Bogopa outlined the common mechanics of the crime and its severe impact on victims.
“A cell phone is relatively easy to steal,” Bogopa stated. “People often walk around with their phone in their hands… a snatcher… would be able to snatch it quite easily, jump in a car and make their way off.”
He emphasized the significant consequences for victims, many of whom are uninsured. “For many, that cell phone is the only way to connect with the world… Some would even lose their livelihoods and income as a result.”
A major obstacle to combating the crime, according to Bogopa, is drastic underreporting. He cited statistics indicating only 36% of snatched phones are reported to authorities.
“That is… detrimental because the network providers actually cannot get to… those cell phones. It means that those cell phones can easily go back into the market as pre-used,” he explained. This fuels a lucrative secondary market, particularly for high-end devices like iPhones.
Bogopa urged all victims to immediately report thefts to police and notify their network providers to have the devices blacklisted, preventing them from legally re-entering the market.
The analyst also detailed a sophisticated global redistribution network for stolen phones. He explained that devices stolen in South Africa are often resold domestically, but with key components like antennas swapped with parts from phones sourced abroad, complicating tracking.
“When yours is stolen in South Africa, it will be resold in South Africa but with an antenna from another country,” Bogopa said.
He called for significantly more rigorous and proactive inspections of second-hand goods dealers by the South African Police Service’s (SAPS) Directorate for Second-Hand Goods, known as the “flesh.”
Bogopa criticized current compliance checks as superficial, arguing they fail to physically verify the unique IMEI numbers of individual devices against stolen property databases. He specifically implicated seemingly legitimate dealers in upmarket areas as part of the problem.
“The ones that appear to be legit are actually the ones that are selling mostly the… gadgets that are clones,” he asserted. He proposed law enforcement conduct deep, device-by-device audits of dealers’ inventories.
The arrest in the Brooklyn case demonstrates the power of social media and public vigilance in identifying suspects. However, Bogopa’s analysis underscores the systemic challenges in stemming the tide of phone snatching, from low reporting rates to complex international resale chains and regulatory gaps in the second-hand market.