R3 000 a day to protect you and your family: Kidnappings drive increased demand for bodyguards in SA

As kidnappings increase in the country, businesspeople and the wealthy are increasingly turning to personal bodyguards for protection. According to thelatest crime statistics, measuring incidents reported from October to December last year, kidnappings are on the rise, with nearly 5000 cases nationwide and more than 2500 of those in Gauteng. This is far higher than the 2605 kidnappings recorded in the same period in 2021.

Speaking toCity Press, one close protection officer who had worked as a bodyguard in Iraq for 11 years said the market is ripe in South Africa. “There are many cases where men who are in competition with one another will target each other. “Similarly, people try to intimidate or threaten someone into awarding tenders to their companies.

It’s particularly in this area that the threat to the man or his loved ones’ lives increases. “That’s also why there are often kidnappings. If criminals can’t get to you, they start watching and targeting your loved ones,” the man said.

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He said the cost of a close protection officer can vary, but can average between R2 500 and R3 000 a day. According to astudyreleased earlier this year, kidnapping incidents more than doubled over the last decade, with a rapid spike in the last three years. It pointed to several factors, including a crackdown on cash-in-transit heists and other more complex crimes, leading to criminals choosing hijacking as an activity with the least resistance, “offering big rewards with far fewer risks than traditional heists or home robberies.” It also cited kidnapping syndicates crossing international borders to prey on easier targets.

“Criminal syndicates now operate transnationally, with leaders in Johannesburg orchestrating kidnappings in Mozambique while simultaneously establishing local networks to identify new targets,” it found. In some cases, ransoms are demanded in US dollars because they are widely used in markets across Africa and beyond the continent.

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