Business vehicles at higher risk: Mpumalanga named new crime hotspot

Crime continues to be a national scourge, and recently released statistics reveal that business-owned vehicles are a higher risk to crime than personally owned vehicles.

Business-owned vehicles range from cargo trucks with trailers to courier vehicles delivering items ordered online.

Crime targeting these vehicles proves highly lucrative, with criminals acquiring the vehicle, the goods being transported, and the driver’s personal belongings, such as a mobile phone.

Higher risk

Tracker’s vehicle crime statistics for January to June 2025 show that business-owned vehicles are 48% more likely to be targeted than personally-owned vehicles. This trend is largely driven by hijackings, with notable shifts in both timing and location.

Mpumalanga has emerged as a new hotspot, and incidents are increasingly occurring during the week rather than over weekends. 

Gauteng leads

The Tracker Vehicle Crime Index aggregates information from Tracker’s more than 1.1 million subscriptions. 

The data indicates that business-owned vehicles experience 32% more crime than their proportion within the Tracker base, highlighting a significantly higher risk compared to personally-owned vehicles. It’s no surprise that the majority of this crime - 57% - occurs in Gauteng. 

Nationally, hijackings of business-owned vehicles occur at nearly double the rate of thefts. Regionally, this trend becomes even more pronounced.

Regional breakdown

In the Western Cape, business vehicle hijackings are five times more likely than theft, in the Eastern Cape, four times more likely and in Mpumalanga, three times more likely.

While the Western Cape and Eastern Cape were identified as hijacking hotspots last year, Mpumalanga has now joined the list. 

For personal vehicles, the national split between hijacking and theft is equal. However, in the Eastern Cape, hijackings are five times more likely than theft, and twice as likely in Mpumalanga and Limpopo. 

Most vehicle crime was previously reported over weekends; hijackings now mainly occur on Thursdays between 4pm and 9pm. Theft continues to be most commonly reported on Saturdays between 11am and 4pm. 

Regionally, the most prominent day and time for hijackings varies.

Gauteng shows a tendency toward Tuesdays between 11am and 4pm, KwaZulu-Natal Wednesdays from 4pm to 9pm and the Western Cape, Wednesdays from 6am to 11am. 

During the first half of 2025, Tracker recovered 3,671 vehicles, assisted in 146 arrests and helped recover 10 firearms. 

“Crime trends change over time, and the shifting pattern of hijackings shows that they can happen anytime, anywhere, making it essential to remain alert to your surroundings,” says Duma Ngcobo, Chief Operating Officer at Tracker. 

“Businesses, in particular, can take proactive steps to mitigate risk by implementing technologies such as AI-powered fleet dashcams with facial recognition, 360-degree cameras, safe zone management, cargo door sensors, and emergency driver assist buttons.

"These tools enable fleet managers to respond swiftly to incidents. Additionally, subscribing drivers to rapid emergency armed response services can further enhance safety.”