{"id":845710,"date":"2025-12-26T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=845710"},"modified":"2025-12-26T06:23:19","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T04:23:19","slug":"one-of-the-fastest-growing-crimes-in-south-africa-is-worse-than-you-think-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/845710\/one-of-the-fastest-growing-crimes-in-south-africa-is-worse-than-you-think-2\/","title":{"rendered":"One of the fastest-growing crimes in South Africa is worse than you think"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

While the latest crime statistics show a broad-based decline in reported crimes across most categories in South Africa, white collar crime has continued to rise, with no sign of slowing down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between July and September 2025, commercial collar crime emerged as one of only four community-reported crime categories to increase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commercial crime, also known as ‘white collar crime’, refers to illegal activities committed for financial gain within a business or professional context. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The crimes often involve deception, fraud, or misappropriation of assets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The SAPS recorded 37,248 cases of white-collar crime, a 2.6% increase from the 36,300 cases reported over the same period last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While this may seem relatively benign in the wider picture of declining crime numbers, the 36,000 cases reported in 2024 were up 20% from 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To put it in a wider context, cases of white collar crime in 2025 are up over 50% from just five years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the reported crimes and data published by the South African Police Service do not tell the whole story, as these kinds of crimes are among the most under-reported in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the significant spike in case numbers in 2024, industry experts noted that the true figures are a lot higher as many victims do not report the crime to the police.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is due to a lack of faith and trust in the police that anything will be done, as well as certain reputational damage that could occur if the crime were exposed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q2 2021<\/th>Q2 2022<\/th>Q2 2023<\/th>Q2 2024<\/th>Q2 2025<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
24,613<\/td>29,516<\/td>30,630<\/td>36,300<\/td>37,248<\/td><\/tr>
+12.4%<\/strong><\/mark><\/td>+19.9%<\/strong><\/mark><\/td>+3.8%<\/strong><\/mark><\/td>+18.5%<\/strong><\/mark><\/td>+2.6%<\/strong><\/mark><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div>
Commercial Crimes Q2 2020 to 2025<\/em>, year-on-year increases<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Commercial crime covers a wide array of criminal activity, from fraud to embezzlement, forgery and money laundering. Bribery and corruption are also commercial crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For businesses, having employees or executives caught stealing or convicted of embezzlement can harm their reputation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For individuals who are victims of fraud and scams, there is often a level of embarrassment that also discourages them from reporting the crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Stats SA’s Victims of Crime Survey, published in August, only 35% of fraud victims actually report the crime\u2014down from around 42% a few years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taking industry insights and victim surveys into account, white collar crimes are not only growing, but are likely far more prevalent than the data shows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Off the grey list<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
National Director of Public Prosecutions, Shamila Batohi<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The rise of commercial crimes in South Africa is notable in the context of the country being removed from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list in October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the key reasons South Africa was put on the list in the first place was due to the lack of financial controls, gaps in regulation, and a lack of successful prosecutions when taking on commercial crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The FATF’s focus is on money laundering and terrorism financing, and South Africa fell short of many standards set internationally for combating these crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa was put on the grey list in February 2023 and removed in October 2025, making it a relatively short stint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the past three years, the government and lawmakers have worked to strengthen the regulatory frameworks that were often exploited by commercial criminals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, prosecutions were and remain the weakest aspect of the reforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Business Leadership South Africa CEO, Busi Mavuso, this is not something the business community has overlooked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite piles of evidence of corruption and comprehensive findings from commissions, the South African National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has a frustratingly long list of failed prosecutions<\/strong><\/a>, she noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa faces a critical decision as the current National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP), Shamila Batohi, is retiring in 2026, and her successor needs to be selected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mavuso said that the decision on who takes up the seat next will affect South Africa\u2019s business environment for the next decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If businesses and victims of fraud do not have faith that perpetrators and commercial criminals will face consequences for their activities, under-reporting is likely to continue, and cases are likely to keep piling up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While the latest crime statistics show a broad-based decline in reported crimes across most categories in South Africa, white collar crime has continued to rise, with no sign of slowing down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":834070,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[10588,20139,3888,1809],"class_list":["post-845710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-crime-stats","tag-fatf","tag-saps","tag-stats-sa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=845710"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":846579,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845710\/revisions\/846579"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/834070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=845710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=845710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=845710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}