City of Cape Town's 'eye in the sky' on the hunt for criminals

CAPE TOWN - The City of Cape Town law enforcement unveiled a state-of-the-art plane with infrared cameras to assist in tackling crime.

The two-seater aircraft dubbed "eye in the sky" is able to detect, among others, a recently fired gun, body heat in cold water and wheels of a speeding car.

With the help of the new crime-fighting technology, two suspected poachers were nabbed last week with bags of illegal crayfish in Hout Bay's waters.

Safety and Security MMC JP Smith said that the technology would be deployed at various crime hotspots across the metro.

"One thing we've done differently with this from the drones is that with the drones, when we finally managed to get the procurement resolved, the drones arrived, and we had a theoretical understanding of it but not the practical experience to start effectively using it overnight.

"This time we have understood that we learn as an organisation and we've invested over the last few weeks in training all of our middle and senior management on how the technology works and how they can integrate it in their operations," said Smith.