The smart BP office complex in Parktown was visited by a different kind of "Santa Claus" on Christmas Day. About seven armed robbers took the security guards in the building by surprise in the early hours of Christmas Day.
Computer and communications equipment to the value of hundreds of thousands of rand was stolen from the offices.
However, the Christmas robbers met their match when they reached the Dex group's offices, because Dex's own biometric security technology prevented them from entering the offices. Dex is the only company in the building that wasn't robbed.
"It's good to know that our own biometric units prevented the robbers from gaining access to our offices," says Dex Informatix managing director Jans Wessels. Unlike the other offices in the building, Dex's offices aren't controlled by the standard cards, and the guards could therefore not open them.
"We manufacture and sell these biometric units every day. In this case, the positive results are effective proof of the validity of our sales pitch."
Wessels says the biometric scanners were too much of a risk for the robbers. Nor were they able to determine what other security and alarm systems were linked to the biometrics. "This saved us from a massive loss."
Wessels says the stolen computers at the other companies are probably the "smaller loss", since the lost data and the time to set everything up again can involve huge costs.
Share
Editorial contacts