When you think of Cape Town, images of luxury homes on the Atlantic Seaboard often come to mind. Yet the latest quarterly crime statistics released by the South African Police Service (SAPS) reveal a starkly different reality for Delft, a densely populated suburb that sits inside the city’s richest metropolitan municipality. Delft logged 249 carjackings, the highest total of any police precinct in South Africa, during the 2025/26 financial year.
Carjacking, also known as hijacking, is the unlawful seizure of a vehicle while the driver is present. The SAPS figures show that the national trend is moving in the right direction: total carjackings fell by 14.4% in the first quarter, 12.3% in the second, 8.1% in the third and 20.4% in the fourth compared with the same periods a year earlier. Yet the decline is uneven. Gauteng still accounts for more than half of all reported cases, while the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal together contribute over 80% of the nation’s total.
What makes Delft stand out is not a sudden spike but a consistent level of activity. The precinct recorded 68 cases in Q1, 60 in Q2, 60 in Q3 and 61 in Q4. By contrast, other hotspots such as Lingelethu-West and Nyanga saw sharper fluctuations. Delft’s steady numbers mean it topped the national ranking, even as the country as a whole saw fewer hijackings.
For small business owners, the implications are concrete. Delivery firms, ride-hailing drivers and any operation that relies on road transport face higher risk in Delft. Insurance premiums for vehicle fleets tend to rise in high-risk areas, and the cost of hiring security personnel can erode thin profit margins. Moreover, frequent hijackings can disrupt supply chains, leading to delayed deliveries and dissatisfied customers, a problem that can quickly spread beyond the precinct’s borders.
Local authorities have responded with increased patrols and community-policing initiatives, but the SAPS data does not yet show a measurable impact on Delft’s numbers. The city’s wealth does not extend evenly; while Cape Town hosts between 7,200 and 8,500 resident US-dollar millionaires, suburbs like Delft grapple with dense housing, busy roads and limited public services.
Understanding the geography helps put the risk into perspective. Delft lies about 26 kilometres from Cape Town’s central business district and close to the international airport, making it a strategic route for both legitimate and illicit traffic. The concentration of crime in a few precincts suggests that broader national improvements may mask local hotspots that require targeted interventions.
For entrepreneurs operating in or near Delft, the data suggests a need to reassess security protocols. Options include installing GPS tracking on vehicles, partnering with local security firms, and reviewing insurance coverage to ensure it reflects the heightened risk. Some businesses may even consider relocating distribution centres to lower-risk suburbs, though that decision must weigh the cost of moving against potential savings from reduced theft.
While the national decline in hijackings is encouraging, the persistence of high numbers in places like Delft underscores that crime reduction is not uniform. Small-business owners who depend on road transport should monitor SAPS releases, engage with local community groups and stay alert to any changes in policing strategy that could affect their operations.
SAPS publishes precinct level crime data annually, breaking down categories such as carjacking, house robbery and business robbery by police station area, and precincts in and around Cape Town’s northern suburbs have featured prominently in vehicle crime statistics in recent years. The South African Police Service’s own precinct-level crime statistics carries further detail. For related coverage, see this site’s Regulatory and Policy coverage.
Insurers factor precinct-level crime data of this kind into vehicle premium calculations, meaning residents and businesses operating in a high-incidence precinct can face materially higher insurance costs even if their own individual risk profile is otherwise unremarkable.
