2004 Volume 3

CRIME PAYS - BRIBERY AND CORRUPTION
An Inside Look at Crime in South Africa
Anna Cox

Just because someone is a car hijacker doesn't mean he isn't religious.

So says 28-year-old Rashid Bin Salim, of Orange Farm, who ended his life of crime last year, reformed and is now a struggling fashion designer and community worker.

A Muslim, he says he used to pray to God every morning to send him a victim in a bakkie. This is because a stolen car would fetch only R500, but he could get R12000 for a bakkie or a truck.

He and his gang would scout the suburbs for bakkies, watch the owner's movements for a few days and then strike.

'I know how the legal system works. I know the loopholes and always found them'. Bin Salim says he hijacked so many vehicles that he can't remember the number. It certainly is more than 200, he says.

He was never convicted in 14 years of crime, he claims, because he bribed "hundreds" of police officers to "lose" his files. He only ever spent time in jail as an awaiting-trial prisoner, and the longest stretch he served was nine months.

He says his sentences would probably have reached about a collective 40 years in prison.

"It was easy. I offered the investigating officers anything between R2 000 and R5 000 and the docket was lost. With that gone, there was no case against me and I was released time after time. After all these years, I know how the legal system works. I know the loopholes and always found them."

He also frequently bribed prison officials to let him out of prison while he was awaiting trial.

'Hijacking someone is easy'
"When I got sick and tired of sitting there waiting for trial, I would bribe them to open the doors. They used to hide me in the kitchens and then open up for me at night when everyone was sleeping. That would cost me R2 000," he says.

He stopped his criminality completely about a year ago when he started the Zithuthukiseni Basha group for former criminals and ex-convicts. About 115 of them are trying to turn their lives around, attending a variety of classes, ranging from literacy to life skills.

Bin Salim was born in Rosettenville, Johannesburg, and then moved to Durban to study at an Islamic school. But he couldn't study further because his parents couldn't afford it. He later went to live with his grandmother in Soweto, where his life of crime began.

"I started criminal school there. The gang members taught me how to strip cars when I was 13 and soon I was charging R600 to disconnect alarms and trackers. From that I went on to hijacking because there was more money."

"Hijacking someone is easy. People have to stop at gates and wait for them to be opened, or get out to open them, and that is when I would ask them for their cars. I was always polite and never injured anyone."

"I would just ask them to start their car so that I could avoid the anti-hijacking system. No one ever refused to give me their vehicle."

"Sometimes we would make the men take their clothes off so that it would take them more time to report us. I was scared in case they had guns. One of my friends was shot dead by his victim."

Tracking systems are a joke, he says. "While my friend was driving away from the hijacking, I would disconnect the wires - it takes less than two minutes. Then we would play with the police and the tracking companies."

"We would give the SIM card to children in the township to play with, or drop it on the floor of a taxi, and the police and tracking helicopters would swoop, only to find that they had been tricked."

He would get orders on a daily basis from syndicates. Sometimes it was four vehicles a day, other times only one.

He made an average of R50000 a month, but as quickly as it came in, it was spent.

"Because I never worked for it, I never appreciated it and within a few hours I would spend R12 000 on clothes and shoes, on gifts for my girlfriend and in the shebeens."

Last year, Bin Salim decided to end his criminal ways. "I have to set an example to my younger brother. I heard him tell one of his friends he was fighting with that he would get me to kill him. I didn't like that."


"I also didn't like the fact that people would avoid me in the streets. I am not a leper, I am a human being."

When asked if his criminal activities went against religious principles, he says that just because he was a criminal didn't mean he stopped believing in God.

"I used to pray every morning to God to send me someone in a bakkie so that I would have money to spend that day. I didn't stop believing in God just because I was a criminal."

"This criminal life was not supposed to be mine. It is the result of poverty that my parents had no money to educate me. I am a clever person. I asked myself what I wanted and I decided I wanted to help myself and the community.

"Crime doesn't pay. I have nothing left. I am happy I am out."

I want to sweat for my money now and use my talent."

Bin Salim does motivational talks at 23 schools in the Orange Farm area, discouraging youngsters from doing crime. He says that since the group was started, crime in the area has dropped dramatically.

This article was originally published on page 5 of The Star on July 27, 2004