![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/petrol-station-TotalEnergies.jpg\")
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While motorists are often on high alert for crimes such as hijackings or smash-and-grabs, an expert is now warning South Africans to look out for a new scam targeting motorists at filling stations \u2013 dubbed the \u201cschool girl\u201d scam.<\/p>\n
The scam has been flagged by Richard Brussow \u2013 the chief instructor at the National Hijack Prevention Academy \u2013 who has 25 years of experience in the SAPS, primarily specialising in vehicle hijacking syndicates, and an additional 12 years in this crime in the private sector.<\/p>\n
Brussow cautioned that there was a notable trend of male motorists being targetted at filling stations by an organised routine involving young girls to take advantage of the new gender-based violence act to their advantage.<\/p>\n
The modus operandi is as follows:<\/p>\n
A motorist filling up or parked at a petrol station gets approached by a schoolgirl between 13 and 17 years old wearing a school uniform.<\/p>\n
She then asks the motorist if she can use their cellphone to call her mother because she\u2019s run out of airtime.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe main objective is to climb into your vehicle. As soon as that girl is inside the car waiting to use your phone, a supposed metro police officer knocks on your window \u2013 asking what\u2019s going on. This is when the school girls will shout and accuse the driver of abduction and attempted rape,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Brussow noted that under the new gender-based violence or domestic violence act, this is an immediate arrest.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve dealt with cases where the motorist has been placed in handcuffs and berated for the situation they find themselves in,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Brussow then said the \u201cpolice officer\u201d goes to speak to the girl to find out what happened before coming back and saying, \u201cIt\u2019s your lucky day. If you pay her R3,000, she will not carry on with the case against you\u201d.<\/p>\n
Brussow added that, in some cases, it\u2019s not just R3,000 once-off.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey take your details and phone you periodically, telling you that you must pay for the girl not to press charges against you.<\/p>\n
\u201cBe very, very careful here. If you get approached by a schoolgirl at a petrol station, do not let her in your vehicle under any circumstances,\u201d warned Brussow. \u201cLock your doors and don\u2019t engage with anyone that\u2019s not an employee of the filling station.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While motorists are often on high alert for crimes such as hijackings or smash-and-grabs, an expert is now warning South Africans to look out for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-innov8ions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1505"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1507,"href":"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1505\/revisions\/1507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.innov8fs.co.za\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}