Uganda police have on Monday alerted the public about a new criminal gang using sophisticated technology to break into cars parked along driveways, street parking and other gazetted parking lots in the Kampala metropolitan area.
According to Police, the CCTV teams at Naguru have been working with territorial commanders within KMP and managed to track and arrest a boda boda rider of motorcycle number UFG 362Z identified as Mawazi Jimmy who was captured on various CCTVs actively surveilling clients from banks up to the stage where they park their vehicles to either go for shopping or make stopovers for lunch and when they go for gyms and saunas in the evenings.
Spokesperson Fred Enanga explained to the press that the suspect on the Boda boda constantly alerts his accomplices moving in a motor vehicle with intrusion devices who would immediately come into contact with the targeted vehicle, break in and rob the cash and other valuables.
In the operation, Enanga revealed that they managed to identify two vehicles a Toyota Spacio and Toyota Wish that this criminal gang behind the rampant breaking ins was using.
For instance, in one of the matters under inquiry, Enanga said that the group recently managed to trail a female victim from KCB bank at Lugogo mall and followed her up to one of the Supermarkets in Sonde where she made a stopover to buy a few items and then proceed.
“As soon as she entered the supermarket, her vehicle was broken into and cash totaling to 50 million which she had withdrawn from the bank was robbed and the whole robbery operation took just few seconds,” Enanga said.
In this new tactic, the vehicle approaches the targeted vehicle of the victim and using a metallic device and other destructive tactics, they manage to break into the vehicle.
Police said that apparently, they have about 20 similar reports where there are intentional vehicle contacts; where a vehicle parks next to another and within seconds, they break into, rob and take off.
Enanga further encouraged financial institutions, supermarkets, hotels to adopt real time monitoring to curb this new robbery.
“We have noticed that members of this gang have devices that can disrupt the alarm systems and disable it. So having car alarms may not be important when such thugs are using a new type of technology which disconnects car security systems,” Enanga told the press.
