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A man with a gun.

A woman wearing a balaclava and holding a baton.
Mother-of-four Faith Nikosi ready to patrol her neighbourhood in Alexandra, Johannesburg.(Foreign Correspondent: Tom Joyner)

A man riding a bike in front of power lines.
Power infrastructure in Alexandra township in Johannesburg.(Foreign Correspondent: Tom Joyner)
A man with copper in his hand.
A scavenger with a handful of copper.(Foreign Correspondent: Tom Joyner)
A man walks past scrap piled in a blue container.
A scrapyard in Cape Town.(Foreign Correspondent: Tom Joyner)
Two men outside a scrapyard.
Scrapyards pay cash for scrap metals.(Foreign Correspondent: Tom Joyner)

People walking down a dark street.
A community patrol heads out at 5am in search of copper thieves operating in Alexandra.(Foreign Correspondent: Tom Joyner)
A woman holds a torch in a dark street.
Faith Nkosi on patrol.(Foreign Correspondent: Tom Joyner)
Three men.
Members of the community patrol.(Foreign Correspondent: Tom Joyner)

Community patrollers in Alexandra.
Community patrollers in Alexandra.(Foreign Correspondent: Tom Joyner)

The patrol prepares to enter a home.(Foreign Correspondent: Tom Joyner)

A woman with a torch.
Faith Nkosi searches the neighbourhood.(Foreign Correspondent: Tom Joyner)

A car in the dark with its headlights on.
Early morning commuters in Alexandra.(Foreign Correspondent: Tom Joyner)

People with torches looking in a big bag.
The patrol searches for signs of theft.(Foreign Correspondent: Tom Joyner)

Men walk through a vacant lot.
Men walk through a vacant lot in Alexandra township, Johannesburg.(Foreign Correspondent: Tom Joyner )

Train line.
 An abandoned train line in Cape Town has had its copper lines stripped.(Foreign Correspondent: Tom Joyner)
Men looking for copper.
Scavengers sift through rubbish for copper in Soweto, South Africa.(Foreign Correspondent: Tom Joyner)
A dog bites a boy's jumper.
Kids in Cape Town.(Foreign Correspondent: Tom Joyner)

Faith Nkosi

A man in a mask.
A former member of a copper theft gang turned informant.(Foreign Correspondent: Tom Joyner)

A horse buggy going past a fire.
Children ride a horse-drawn buggy past a fire where men are burning copper cabling to extract the wire.(Foreign Correspondent: Tom Joyner)

A man at a window.
A man at the sales window of a Cape Town scrapyard.(Foreign Correspondent: Tom Joyner)

A woman looking at screens.
Combined Private Investigations staff monitoring live feeds from teams protecting infrastructure from copper thieves.(Foreign Correspondent: Tom Joyner)

A man shining a torch.
A CPI security contractor shines a torch on an abandoned electrical substation.(Foreign Correspondent: Tom Joyner)
A trench.
A trench dug by thieves to remove underground copper wire outside Johannesburg.(Foreign Correspondent: Tom Joyner)

A man in a manhole.
An alleged copper thief down a manhole in Johannesburg.(Foreign Correspondent: Tom Joyner)

Men handcuffed on the ground.
Security contractors arrest alleged copper thieves.(Foreign Correspondent: Tom Joyner)

Men shining a torch down a manhole.
Security officers search the manhole.(Foreign Correspondent: Tom Joyner)

Feet.
Men arrested for allegedly stealing copper.(Foreign Correspondent: Tom Joyner)

A group of people.
Faith Nkosi (left) at sunrise after a night patrol through her community in Alexandra.(Foreign Correspondent: Tom Joyner)

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