WATCH: Drone footage captures live smash-and-grab

Lester Kiewit speaks to Alderman JP Smith, Mayoral Committee Member for Safety and Security at the City of Cape Town.

Video footage captured by a drone and released to The Western Cape's Live Traffic & Safety Reports Facebook page on Facebook on 17 July shows a smash-and-grab in progress. 

The clip shows a suspect in a bright orange top smashing at least three car windows in the space of five minutes at Malibongwe Drive and the N7. He then runs back into the informal settlement.

A Capetonian who regularly hovers over this infamous hotspot with his drone caught the footage on camera, says Smith.

"We are in touch with him and we do the same. We use drones for the same activities he is conducting there and for many other things," adds Smith.

The footage captured close-ups of the perpetrator's face, but is it enough to be used as digital evidence to apprehend the suspect?

Smith explains that it's a 'challenge' using third-party footage.

"The court would need to determine that the footage has integrity, that it has not been tampered with... He would need to testify that he operated the drone and recorded that footage. So, part of the City's process when we use drones is that we comply with all the procedures for the digital evidence to be admissible in court, which includes a testimony from the owner of the drone... and this is always the challenge when using third party footage."

- Alderman JP Smith, Safety and Security - City of Cape Town

Smith says the City has been using drones to help fight crime since October 2022 but there are 'tedious' and 'over-regulated' aviation rules around these operations. 

"We use drones for unpredictable things like shot spotting, mapping fire breaks and land invasion sites, checking canals for obstacles or lost people during storms... In this last year alone, we've done 2835 drone flights across the City. Our teams are becoming more comfortable with this technology because it's an advantage for a myriad of uses."

- Alderman JP Smith, Safety and Security - City of Cape Town

"It's incredibly difficult getting the right to fly these devices and getting aviation officials to understand the necessity of us [the City] doing so."

- Alderman JP Smith, Safety and Security - City of Cape Town

Scroll up to the audio player to listen to the full conversation.