Armed robbers in South Africa sending stolen phones to Nigeria

Police in South Africa say a succession of armed robberies have been taking place at shopping malls in various parts of the country in the last few months and that most of the loot, which are usually electronic devices, is sent to Nigeria.

South Africa’s iol news on Saturday, quoted the country’s police spokesman, Lt-Gen Solomon Makgale as saying: “The service providers have confirmed that the majority of the items are activated in Nigeria,”

He said that “the recipients use courier services to send the items to Nigeria.”, adding that most of the devices were cellphones.

Makgale was further quoted as saying that investigation had identified that there were several groups involved in the robberies. He added that four people previously arrested in separate incidents were linked to eight other cases.

“The groups aren't necessarily collaborating, but some of them have common individual members: In other words, you find one person involved with two or three groups”, he said.

According to the news medium’s report, a recently established task team, which included crime intelligence officials as well as representatives from Vodacom, Cell-C, MTN and Telkom, was currently looking at 18 incidents related to mall robberies.