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I know we’re approaching the silly season, but I think a few of our less intelligent fellow citizens have decided not only to get a head-start, but to take the idea to a whole new level.

Somewhere out there is a sangoma who is no doubt giggling madly to himself and who is probably a couple of hundred rands richer for his trouble.

In the first week of September, a gang of would-be cash-in-transit hijackers decided to one-up the local police by using muti to render themselves invisible while robbing the armoured vehicle... in broad daylight.

Needless to say the entire operation was a disaster.

Personally, I’m grateful that criminals discount the value of education in their line of work. Just imagine the damage they would be able to do if they actually decided to put in a few more years developing their common sense; or even putting a few extra hours into planning their “jaunts”.

Surely they must have figured out that they weren’t getting their money’s worth when they could still see each other? And say it did work, surely they must have considered that passers-by might find a car driving along with “no-one in it” a tad suspicious?

One can only imagine what must have gone through their minds when the police not only returned fire at them, but were pretty darned accurate to boot.

This isn’t the first time this year we’ve been entertained by candidates for poster-boys for why crime doesn’t pay. Last month, police foiled a hijacking by a group of masterminds “who had smeared themselves with a “Bullet-Proof” paste. Of course that didn’t help the wannabe-gangster who was knocked down by a speeding car while trying to escape the police. I’m surprised the paramedics who tended their wounds were able to keep a straight face.

Maybe next time they should have spent a little extra and bought an “All-Purpose” muti or at least paid attention to the example set by our next specimens from the shallow end of the criminal think-tank.

In February of this year, this bunch of MENSA rejects who not only sprayed themselves with muti, but took the extra precaution of burning “lucky” incense before attempting to rob a bank. Three guesses how that little adventure turned out and your first two don’t count. Hint: we have a plethora of inductees into the Darwin Awards hall of fame.

Almost as tragic is the case of the gang with the “Anti-Arrest” muti who tried their luck in Durban in January of this year (anyone spotting a pattern yet?).

Unfortunately, they didn’t plump for including “Bullet-Proofing” or “Flight-Power” options. One chap tried to escape by launching himself out of the second-storey window of the hotel in which they were holed-up and wound up impaling his foot on the spiked fence below.

But there’s more: a year ago, a pair of criminal whiz-kids bought a load of bullet-proof muti from a sangoma for an undisclosed amount. Their “good luck” started almost immediately when they decided to hold up two gentlemen who happened to be plain-clothes security guards.

The outcome was pertinently summed up by police spokesperson Inspector Percy Morokane: “Our message is that crime and witchcraft does not pay."

After researching all these incidents and having wiped the remaining tears of laughter from my eyes, I realised there were two conclusions at which one could arrive, both of which are entirely plausible given the poor players in these mini comedies-of-errors.

Conclusion one: Sangomas are actually deep-cover Scorpions agents doing their bit to lower the crime stats, one criminal at a time.

Conclusion two: (Thankfully) criminals don’t have access to the internet. I wonder if our abovementioned buddies (the ones that survived their little sprees) have figured out where they went wrong. My bet is that no matter how much time they’ve been given to spend reflecting on the (multiple) errors of their ways, the only thing they’ll ever get out such an exercise is a migraine.