Beware, you cash-in-transit robbers – the battle is on.

The fight against these cash heists, which has been plaguing the country for months on end, has taken a technological turn.

Advances are being made in safety and security mechanisms to protect millions of rand in cash transported across South Africa daily.

A panel discussion on the subject, as well as a demonstation, took place outside Johannesburg on Tuesday.

Via a report by Times LIVE:

The discussion‚ which involved the Gauteng government‚ police‚ Interpol and cash-in-transit security experts‚ saw the demonstration of technology to protect money transported by road and being delivered to and collected from shops.

For such technology to be deployed, it must be approved by the Reserve Bank as it can potentially destroy the money being transported.

This is the tech that’s been developed so far:

The technology demonstrated included the latest advancements in ink dye and foam cement systems‚ which either make the money unusable or cash vans impenetrable.

AllCash has advanced a cash van foam defence system‚ which was developed by the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research‚ and an ink dye system which destroys money in hand-carried cash boxes should they be stolen from guards.

The foam system is activated inside a van’s vault the moment a cash-in-transit vehicle is either rammed off the road‚ shot at or hit by a bomb blast.

Seems effective, don’t you think?

As you can also tell from the video, there’s also a fingerprint-activated cross pad carrier case that injects dye into its content if it falls into the wrong hands – in other words, bye bye, money.

So this tech looks like the answer to all our problems, right?

Don’t rejoice just yet:

While advances are made in safety and security mechanisms to protect millions of rand in cash transported across South Africa daily‚ there is little‚ if any‚ legislation setting minimum standards for technology to be installed in vehicles or to compel cash-in-transit companies to use the technology.

Well, that’s just bloody inconvenient.

It gets worse – AllCash CEO Graeme King also reckons that some cash-in-transit companies aren’t using this tech at all:

Pressure needs to be brought to bear on these companies. It is iniquitous that companies‚ which are responsible for moving high value assets such as cash‚ are not being compelled by government to deploy technology‚ especially given the dangers that surround the transportation of cash …

Companies need to realise that it’s imperative that they start to deploy this technology to both save lives and protect assets.

You’ve got that right, bro. We’ve already seen civilians getting caught in the crossfire like we saw with the Boksburg bomb heist and the Cape Town robbery.

For their sake and ours, these companies need to beef up their security strategies before those robbers try their luck again.

To read the full article, click here.

[source:timeslive]