Criminals and syndicates often use vehicles when they target a community as this allows them to quickly enter the area, commit a crime and get out again. This is why it is important for any community wanting to safeguard themselves to take note of the vehicles driving around in the area that do not belong there.
The residents of Bloubosrand have been plagued for a while now with ongoing incidents of crime involving Illegal electrical connections, people tampering with and stealing equipment inside the transformers and common robberies. Danny Maringa, Community Development Manager for Fidelity ADT says they have been working with the community and local SAPS and CPF to come up with a more impactful solution to combat this kind of crime.
“Ultimately we have been trying to screen the numbers of people who are walking around in the suburb. Our Armed Response Officers also assist by locking and unlocking Teuton gates at agreed stipulated times with JRA to limit foot traffic and unwanted suspicious vehicles entering the suburb but we felt we needed more.”
“A Licence Plate Recognition system is an ideal tool as it monitors all vehicles entering the area and flags those confirmed as stolen or wanted by the SAPS. These are then sent through to our dedicated Monitoring & Control Centre and checked against various databases. If a match occurs, the control room receives the alert and immediately notifies the SAPS in the area,” says Maringa. “As we were already working so closely with the Bloubosrand community and have fostered a strong collaborative partnership we felt this was the next step.”
Maringa says to date two poles have been erected. One on the corner of Vloot and Riverbends roads with two cameras, and one on the corner of Teuton Street and Drommedaries roads with one overview camera. These were activated in March this year.
According to Yannick Algrain, Committee member of BCF, “The cameras are so valuable as these days the majority of crime is not committed by opportunistic criminals walking into a suburb, but rather by sophisticated syndicates that drive in, usually with stolen cars or using false number plates. The beauty of the cameras is they can then pick these vehicles up early and often match them to crimes in other areas. They certainly act as a deterrent to criminals and that is what we want – we want them out of our suburb.”
Fidelity ADT has invested in LPR Technology to create heightened security visibility across a number of suburbs in Gauteng and the results have been encouraging.
“We are confident that this solution will provide us and the SAPS with a distinct edge and continue to drive down crime,” he concludes.
