AFRICA COMPUTER THIEVES ON RAMPAGEallAfrica.com: Namibia: Computer Thieves On RampageSeptember 26, 2005
Posted to the web September 26, 2005

John Ekongo
Windhoek

THERE appears to be a syndicate of computer thieves raiding schools in Windhoek to steal computers and related equipment.

According to statistics, during the last two months alone close to six schools were broken into and culprits carted away computers worth tens of thousands of dollars.

Several principals New Era spoke to said the recent spate of thefts, perpetrated by what appears to be well-connected syndicates, are causing dismay among educators.

The head teacher of Pionierspark Boys School, Bnya Eiseb, said his school was broken into late last month and thieves snatched a computer.

Three days later, Emma Hoogenhout Primary School was on the receiving end when thieves accessed the teacher resource centre and helped themselves to three computers.

In the latest incident, thieves broke in at Hage Geingob Primary School in Katutura over the weekend and stole three computers from the school computer laboratory valued at N$37 000. According to Hanna Garises, the headmaster of the school, the thieves stole the school's Internet proxy server.

Two days later across town, thieves also broke into the administration premises of Khomasdal's David Bezuidenhout High School and robbed the school of three computers, of which two doubled as the school's servers.

The incident, which occurred during the early morning hours of Wednesday, deprived the school of three Pentium 4 Proline Computers worth N$24,000, two being the schools Window 2000 server, whilst the other was the Internet proxy server from the school Internet resource organisation SchoolNet Namibia.

Interestingly, the incidents took place right under the noses of security guards who in most cases are not armed and are apparently instructed by their minders to chase the thieves with stones.

According to one of the guards, the thieves cut through the perimeter fence of the school and went straight to the window of the office that houses the servers and cut open the burglar bars with a bolt cutter. According to the guard, the incident happened at around 02h45. The police only arrived some thirty minutes later after the guard alerted the police via his mobile phone.

"They were passing each other the computers, through the window, and it triggered the alarm, but I was not armed and I could not do anything," said the guard whose name is known to New Era.

Sources said earlier in the night a black City Golf was spotted parked at the school back entrance, with three occupants in the car.

The occupants then shielded their faces from a learner who passed by, according to one student. Tom Swimmer, of Punch Lifestyle Computers, strongly believes there is a syndicate of computer thieves targeting schools. Swimmer points to the fact that in the last month, there has been a considerable number of computer thefts.

He says it appears that there is a huge market for computer equipment and thieves are taking advantage of it.

He does not rule out the possibility that some of these jobs involve staff members, as the thieves know exactly where the computers are stored. According to experts, some of the servers stolen are mega-machines and their uses are enormous as they usually come with an abundance of memory space.

Approached for comment, Abraham Kanime, Chief of the Windhoek City Police, said his force was aware of the increase in computer thefts in and around the capital.

The last time that the city cops apprehended a suspect who was trying to get away with stolen computer equipment red-handed was in May.