SAPS gets tech-savvy

The South African Police Service (SAPS) is beefing up its cyber crime-fighting capabilities.

"The commercial branch members will be sent on the 'First Responder' course, commencing in early 2007, which will enable officers to go on the scene and create mirror images of information stored on hard drives and cellphones, and follow the electronic footprint of the crime," says senior superintendent JA van Wyk, section commander for bank-related crime.

He notes that officers are currently unable to do this.

Van Wyk adds that investigating officers are also sent on an individual basis to cyber crime courses at the University of Pretoria to up their knowledge and skills.

"There's a move by other branches of SAPS, like in Cape Town and in the City of Johannesburg, to work hand-in-hand with the technical staff from the different banks to nab offenders. We also use this as an opportunity for transference of skills and knowledge."

He says the difficulty SAPS has had in the past is that staff would be trained, then "gobbled up" by the private sector.

"We are in a process of trying to secure competitive packages for technical staff to keep them in this environment, "adds Van Wyk.

"We are also in the process of establishing a hi-tech command centre at head office whereby we will be concentrating on mapping, cellphone tracing and analysis of syndicate operations," he explains.

Superintendent Ronnie Naidoo says the centre is in an existing building and using existing resources. He says it will be operational in a week or two.

Naidoo says the centre will consolidate information from serious and violent crimes to organised crime in databases, allowing for all crime-fighting units to share intelligence.