A Mafia-like scamming syndicate is threatening a major Eastern Cape retailer which is trying to combat wholesale crimes being committed at ATMs near its entrances.
Tourists are seen as good prey, but anyone, even the poorest gogo is a target, said three directors of the Western Gruppe, and the managing director of their security company, in an in-depth interview on Friday.
Western Gruppe owns 29 outlets – 14 Spars and 15 Tops stores in the province.
They said a gang was operating across the province, from Mthatha, to Buffalo City and Port Elizabeth.
They, and some of their employees, have received death threats for blowing the whistle on the highly organised syndicate.
Based on their in-store information, private investigations and CCTV camera footage, the directors believe the mobsters are raking in hundreds of thousands of rands, sometimes in just one day.
They believe the syndicate uses sophisticated machinery to capture card information, including pin numbers being punched into ATMs, and relay it via routers to laptops being operated by crooks sitting in rented cars nearby.
The group owns five stores in Mthatha, seven in East London, and one each in Port Elizabeth and Butterworth, but the directors said that based on discussions with other retailers in the province, they believed the syndicate was operating at many different stores and malls across the cities.
One of the managers of a Western Gruppe outlet in Mthatha, has opened a criminal case after he was threatened at the store by a knife-wielding gang member on Tuesday.
The directors, and their security company MD, said they had beefed up security at their homes and stores after death threats were directed at them.
But even their security guards were quitting their jobs, apparently after also being threatened by the mobsters.
The directors asked not to be named for fear of being attacked. Even the director of their security company asked to have his name withheld for fear of being targeted.
They said they had posted security guards at ATMs at the entrance to the stores and at malls but five guards had deserted their posts and resigned at once after having received death threats.
“Our guards disappeared just like that. They were visited at their homes by the gang. We are in great danger.”
“Our guards disappeared just like that. They were visited at their homes by the gang. We are in great danger.”
The bosses said the scammers targeted foreign tourists, mostly Germans, who stopped at Mthatha to draw money before driving down to the Wild Coast resort towns, such as Coffee Bay. “The scammers have spotters on cellphones communicating when the tour bus is heading their way and which mall it will stop at.”
The security boss claimed that once the tourists arrived at malls, they were welcomed by well-dressed, well-spoken scammers masquerading as security guards or information officials.
The security boss said: “At the malls they misinform the tourists by encouraging them to draw money from ATMS for non-existent payments like road toll fees, so that they can scam them.”
Mthatha police spokesperson Dineo Koena confirmed that the Madeira police in Mthatha were investigating a case of fraud relating to tourists having been scammed.
Koena said the police were looking for four suspects who allegedly told a family of three they needed to withdraw money for toll fees.
“It happened on the 19th at Madeira Spar Supermarket.”
Koena would not be drawn into discussing the case further, saying that it was at a sensitive stage.
Questions sent to provincial police headquarters were not answered on Friday.
The security company’s managing director said one of the thugs had jammed a row of ATMs, knocking them off-line and deliberately leaving only one still working.
The syndicate then inserted their own gadget into the machine.
“Their card reader is in the ATM and when an account holder inserts the card, it reads the information and sends it to the syndicate inside a car in the parking lot.”
He said the signal to the bank was diverted by a device in the syndicate’s hired car, which looks like a WiFi router with six antennas.
It was connected to a printer which read the card after the machine had swallowed it, and duplicated and printed it immediately.
The gang would then start withdrawing money from another ATM.
Video footage showed the same 11 crooks were working the scam around the city.
The businessmen said they and their customers felt as if they were under siege, especially in Mthatha.
While they appreciated the good relationship they had with the SAPS, they felt that, based on the information they had supplied to the police, arrests could have been made, but this had not happened.
The Western Gruppe said the video footage given to the police clearly identified the suspects.
They said their efforts to put a stop to the wholesale defrauding of the public was a lonely business. They were getting little help from other business entities affected by the criminal operation.
The Dispatch tracked down three victims who were scammed, one of whom lost his R3,000 wages.
They were all too terrified to speak.
One said: “I don’t want to speak about it” and one put the phone down.
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