Goodfellas circa 2006: What is happening in South Africa?
In a story strangely mirroring the Lufthansa heist from the movie Goodfellas, armed robbers – possibly with cooperation from the security guard on duty – stole electronic equipment from Lufthansa at the Johannesburg International Airport:
Electronic equipment was stolen from Lufthansa in an armed robbery at the Johannesburg International Airport, the airline said today.
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The Airports Company of SA (ACSA) said the break-in happened shortly after midnight in “a public area where access is not restricted and did not impact on operations at the airport.”A security guard was present during the robbery.
Superintendent Vishnu Naidoo said the guard claimed he had been tied up and robbed by three armed men, but that irregularities in his story had surfaced.
This is not the first time that ACSA (Airports Company of SA) employees and security guards have been involved in criminal activity:
Naidoo said there had been similar incidents in the past, and after the arrests of several employees and security guards the robberies had stopped.
The Goodfellas resemblance only gets deeper:
ACSA employees were arrested for involvement in a airport heist involving millions of dollars in foreign currency earlier this year.
And just who is “ACSA�
Airports Company South Africa (ACSA) operates South Africa’s ten principal airports, including the three major international airports at Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban.
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ACSA is the largest airports authority in Africa. Together, its 10 airports handle more than 200 000 aircraft landings and 23 million arriving and departing passengers annually.
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ACSA’s mission is to manage and develop world-class airports successfully, for the benefit of all stakeholders. Its vision: to be a world leading airport business.
Emphasis ours.
Nor sure how you become a world leading airport business, operating the 3 major international airports for South Africa, when your own employees and security personnel have a history of cooperating with organized crime.
South Africa’s crime rate has been rising steadily for years now but has been especially rampant in the near past. The government tries to suppress such news and downplay crime statistics in an effort to market the country to tourists and business, but all one has to do is check with local insurance offices and outraged citizens to see that crime is fast becoming a national epidemic.
Special care should be taken when shipping sensitive or high-value cargo to and from South Africa. Make sure that you have adequate cargo insurance coverage and contingency plans in place in case of a loss. This article should be ample evidence that when it comes to securing your property you can not even rely on official airport authorities in charge of running major international airports.
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