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Held for Your PIN: Inside South Africa's Express Kidnapping Surge
Gauteng is recording 27 kidnappings a day, and a growing share are "express" abductions — victims driven around for hours and forced to empty their banking apps. Here is how the crime works and how to lower your risk.
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Held for Your PIN: Inside South Africa's Express Kidnapping Surge
Gauteng is recording 27 kidnappings a day, and a growing share are "express" abductions — victims driven around for hours and forced to empty their banking apps. Here is how the crime works and how to lower your risk.
One Facebook Post, One Old Photo: What a Viral Reunion Teaches Us About Finding the Missing
A Taiwanese man's Facebook post reunited him with his South African half-sister after 30 years apart — a viral good-news story that also shows exactly how, and how not, to use social media in a real search.
"You Must Not Wait": South Africa's Women's Month Opens Under the Shadow of Rising GBV Deaths
As South Africa prepares to mark Women's Month, a horrific Limpopo killing and a blunt warning from the Social Development Minister are a reminder that gender-based violence often escalates in silence — and that families should never wait to report abuse or a missing loved one.
No Silver Alert: Inside the WhatsApp Networks and Wearables Racing to Find SA's Missing Elders
After 85-year-old Rooplal Ramlall was found dead a month after wandering from his Johannesburg complex, families and volunteers are increasingly turning to WhatsApp alert networks, MedicAlert-style tags and GPS wearables to fill the gap left by South Africa's lack of a formal 'Silver Alert' system.
"Do Not Fall in Love With a Chatbot": The New Face of Online Grooming in South Africa
From Roblox chats to AI companions kids call their 'best friend', South African experts warn that online grooming is evolving fast — and knowing the warning signs is now a frontline parenting skill.
"Bodyguard Training" in Moscow: The Job Scam Sending South Africans to the Front Line
Dozens of South Africans have been recruited with promises of security-guard jobs or training in Russia, only to be pushed onto the front lines of the Ukraine war — a scheme now under Hawks investigation and back in the news after a July 2026 death in Russian custody.
The School Run: Why Term 3 Has Put Scholar Transport Under the Microscope
As South African schools reopened for Term 3 this week, traffic police in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape launched intensified scholar transport safety checks — a direct response to the January crash that killed 14 schoolchildren near Vanderbijlpark. Here's what parents can actually do about the most dangerous part of the school day: the commute.
R30 Million and a WhatsApp Threat: Why Ransom Gangs Are Now Hunting Business Owners
A string of multimillion-rand ransom kidnappings targeting entrepreneurs in Gauteng, Mpumalanga and the Western Cape — some run by cross-border syndicates — shows that old-style, days-long ransom kidnapping is alive and organised, even as police notch up fresh arrests.
The Fake Plate on the Real Car: How Cloning Is Fuelling South Africa's Hijacking Crisis
A wave of reporting this month shows cloned and illegal number plates have become a key tool for hijacking syndicates to move stolen vehicles and evade detection — prompting the DA, AfriForum and industry bodies to demand government action.
98 Reported, 16 Still Missing: What the Latest Child Statistics Are Hiding
New Western Cape SAPS figures and the unresolved case of a Tshwane teenager who vanished at initiation school this winter show why South Africa's missing-children numbers likely understate a much bigger problem.
Your Holiday Photos Are a Map: How Oversharing Online Fuels Targeted Kidnappings
Syndicates no longer have to follow you to learn your routine — increasingly, you post it. How over-sharing on social media feeds targeted kidnappings, and a practical digital-hygiene checklist for families.
When a Parent Takes the Child: Custody Disputes, Cross-Border Abduction and the Law
Most child abductions in custody disputes are by a parent, not a stranger. What South African law says, how the Hague Convention works when a child is taken across a border, and the urgent first steps for the parent left behind.
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