Some 400 high-tech South African traffic lights are out of action after thieves in Johannesburg stole the mobile phone Sim cards they contain.
The thieves ran up bills amounting to thousands of dollars by using the stolen cards to make calls.
Johannesburg Road Agency (JRA) said it is investigating the possibility of an “inside job” after only the Sim card-fitted traffic lights were targeted.
The cards were fitted to notify JRA when the traffic lights were faulty.
The vandalism began with a few lights in November and we repaired them. Over December the thieves struck again, this time hitting hundreds more, including the ones they repaird.
Repairing the faulty traffic lights will cost JRA about 9m rand ($1.3m; £870,000).
JRA has since blocked all the stolen Sim cards so that they cannot be used to make further calls – but this was not before the thieves had run up huge bills.
