"We have cases that, based on the investigation and the authorities' qualifications, are cases of organised crime that have already been carried out and investigated and that have been submitted to the judicial authorities", said this Thursday, the director of the legal department of the Criminal Investigation Service (SIC), José Alfredo, in statements to Rádio Nacional de Angola (RNA).
According to the SIC superintendent, the clandestine activity of weighing and transforming ferrous material is a concern for the authorities.
Dorivaldo Adão, spokesperson for the Luanda provincial commission of the Public Assets Protection Programme, also quoted by RNA, admitted that organised crime is underlying the acts of vandalising public property, in which foreign citizens and children are mainly involved.
"We have many expatriate citizens in this business", he said, highlighting the involvement of Asian and West African citizens.
"We are talking about more than 60 percent, and children too", he added.
According to the official, the involvement of children in the process of vandalizing public property is an action encouraged by adults, since they are not accountable before the law.
Every day, in several provinces, especially in Luanda, children, young people and adolescents search for scrap metal, wood and plastic in the trash or in unfinished construction sites to later weigh in improvised warehouses, as previously reported by Lusa.
Ferrous materials are the main preference of the perpetrators who vandalize public property, removing manhole covers and gutter grates – which are missing throughout the city – electrical cables, fiber optic cables, lamps, high-voltage posts, railways and transformer stations, as reported by the police authorities.
Last July, parliament approved the Law on Crimes of Vandalism of Public Property and Services, with penalties ranging from three to 25 years in prison for offenders.
