Police registered 1,823 theft cases at OR Tambo, Cape Town and King Shaka international airports over the three financial years from 2023/24 to 2025/26, according to a written parliamentary reply from Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia. BusinessTech reported the figures as baggage theft, and the same report says Transport Minister Barbara Creecy has outlined a plan for airlines, the airports company and police to tackle baggage pilferage (the removal of items from checked luggage).
The original reply shows the 1,823 is the total of all theft cases at the three airports, not baggage cases alone. That matters for anyone reading the number as a count of stolen bags.
What the police figures show
The reply, question NW3961, was answered in September 2026 and was put by Democratic Alliance MP Lisa-Maré Schickerling. It covers three financial years. Theft cases at OR Tambo were 484, 448 and 437, a total of 1,369. Cape Town recorded 104, 105 and 97 (306 in all), and King Shaka 43, 53 and 52 (148 in all). Across the three airports the yearly totals were 631, 606 and 586, so theft cases fell each year.
OR Tambo is treated differently from the other two. Police record baggage and pilferage incidents there under ordinary theft dockets, and do not count them a second time as baggage cases, to avoid double counting. At Cape Town and King Shaka, baggage handling and pilfering is listed as its own category. Cape Town recorded 90, 67 and 84 such cases (241 in all) and King Shaka 38, 26 and 41 (105 in all). Those 346 cases are on top of the theft figures.
The reply says police count only matters registered as case dockets. Unreported incidents, matters handled internally by airports or airlines, and intelligence that never became a case are left out. Police also withheld case-level detail, citing personal information, active investigations and security arrangements.
Because OR Tambo’s baggage cases are folded into theft, the figures cannot say how many of its 1,369 cases involved luggage. The Mercury reported the same data on 11 September 2026 and said general theft and narcotics smuggling remain the main problems at the three airports. Narcotics smuggling cases totalled 117 over the period, with OR Tambo recording 24, 37 and 45 in successive years, while armed robberies at the three airports fell from four to one.
Who pays when a bag is stolen from
BusinessTech says the Airport Baggage Pilferage Prevention Working Group brings together Airports Company South Africa (ACSA), the police and the Transport Ministry, with the Airline Operators Committee and the Board of Airline Representatives of South Africa. Creecy said it covers the whole baggage chain: check-in, sorting, screening, loading, reclaim, transfers, and staff and contractor access.
Creecy said airlines are primarily responsible for investigating and compensating baggage claims, because they are the legal custodians of checked luggage. ACSA pays no direct compensation unless the airport operator is shown to be liable, but supports investigations through CCTV reviews, security reviews and disciplinary processes. Its measures include upgraded access-control barriers, more patrols and cameras, and targeted inspections of staff.
The working group is not entirely new. In Travel News on 14 October 2025, ACSA said it had set up a group of that name to find and roll out measures at all the airports it operates, and that nine employees from various airports had been arrested for baggage-theft-related offences since April 2025. The same article reported ACSA advising passengers not to pack jewellery, cash, electronics or perfumes in checked luggage, and to wrap, lock and clearly label bags.
The liability position is also long-standing. In a reply to a parliamentary question in April 2017, ACSA said that under the IATA baggage policy the airline is accountable and responsible for the passenger’s baggage, and that stolen bags are logged as claims by the airline or its handling company. The same reply said an airport employee who is positively implicated has their access permit card blacklisted and the case is reported to police.
A separate reply in August 2026, question NW3963, asked whether airport incidents involved fraudulent access permits, cloned vehicles, compromised CCTV or staff collusion. The Acting Minister of Police said police had no registered cases involving any of those indicators at the three airports, and noted that it can report only formally registered cases.
