Durban - Durban central police station which covers the area of the city centre,Durban beachfront and parts of Morningside recorded the highest number of car thefts in the country.
This is according to the last annual crime statistics released on Thursday that showed the station saw a 19% spike in car and motorbike thefts. Car and motorbike thefts in the precinct jumped from 622 in the 2017/18 reporting period to 666 in the 2017/19 period.
Two other Durban police stations, Berea and Umbilo were in the top five stations across the country for car and motorbike thefts. Berea, which was number four in the country saw car and motorbike theft increase from 515 to 591 while Umbilo, at number five in the country saw car and motorbike theft jump from 497 to 540.
The police station that was number two for car and motorbike theft in the country was Honeydew in Johannesburg while Brooklyn, also in Johannesburg was at number three.
In terms of carjackings, three Kwazulu-Natal stations were in the top 30 in the country; Umlazi, Marianhill and KwaMashu E.
Umlazi which was ranked 8 in the country recorded 147 carjackings, down three from last year's 150 reported cases. Mariannhill recorded 134 carjackings, up from the previous year's 80 while KwaMashu E recorded 129 hijackings, up from the previous year which had 84.
Police Minister Bheki Cele conceded on Thursday that the country's overall crime figures "do not look good".
There were decreases across the board for some subcategories of aggravated robbery, including for carjackings (down 1.8%), business robberies (down 1.3%), cash in transit robberies (down 23.1%), bank robberies (down 69.2%), and truck hijacking (1.7%). Robberies at residential premises however saw an increase of 0.8 percent.