South Africa Gets Tough on Crime Gangs

Police are taking cues from a legendary American G-man in tackling South Africa’s notorious crime problem: Break up syndicates by jailing the bosses any way possible.

“I believe we must close them down from the top,” Assistant Police Commissioner Johan de Beer said of organized crime gangs. “If we can’t arrest them for drugs, we will get them into court for money-laundering offenses.”

It’s an approach that harks back to Eliot Ness, the celebrated head of a U.S. government unit nicknamed “The Untouchables.” He helped imprison Chicago gangster Al Capone on income tax evasion charges during the heyday of organized crime in the Prohibition era of the 1920s and ‘30s.

De Beer and his colleagues face an equally daunting task.

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Organized crime in South Africa has escalated from generally small-scale operations centered on localities to nationwide syndicates, many with sophisticated weapons and international links.

High-profile attacks are increasingly major hallmarks in one of the world’s highest rates of crime, particularly violent assaults.

“These syndicates are ruthless and are prepared to kill if someone gets in the way,” de Beer said.

For several months earlier this year, it seemed hardly a day went by without a bank robbery punctuated by gunfire, despite increasingly high-tech prevention methods.

When police focused more attention on banks, the brazen holdups eased, only to be followed by a series of armored car hijackings, including a $3.7-million heist by 15 well-armed men who killed two security guards.

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South Africa now has 3,000 police officers from 10 national units --some with training by American agents from the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration--assigned to fighting organized crime. The short-term goal is to target the 80 largest syndicates among the more than 400 gangs they have identified.

Police say they know who runs the syndicates, and most are South Africans. Many of the operations-- particularly those smuggling weapons, cars and drugs--have international ties, such as a Bulgarian car theft ring that specialized in Nissans.

“One group might have connections with Chinese triads or the West African Crips or the Russian Mafia, but there’s not a strong international foothold,” said Senior Superintendent George Govender of the Organized Crime Detective Service. “We’re doing our best to stop it,” he said. “We wouldn’t like to make a haven for criminals. The problem is that if someone wants to come invest, we don’t know what their motives are.”

Ironically, the end of apartheid in 1994, hailed as a nation-building milestone, helped gangsters by loosening police controls and other restrictions on citizens.

With the easing of border controls, smuggling has increased sharply, and guns have become some of the most popular items being brought in. Many end up in the hands of criminals, including automatic rifles and grenades from regional conflicts of the last decade, such as the now-ended civil wars in neighboring Mozambique and nearby Angola.

Joint police operations over the last two years have destroyed 20 tons of weapons in Mozambique. Officials confiscated 5,500 automatic weapons and 78 pistols in one haul in September.

Typical of organized crime in South Africa is the minibus taxi industry, the main mode of transportation for poor blacks. Under apartheid, the white government ignored black transportation needs, allowing an unregulated industry to grow haphazardly.

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That created a perfect breeding ground for organized crime. A Wild West scenario ensued, with operators competing for lucrative routes resorting more and more to intimidation and violence.

In the last decade, brutal taxi wars have broken out with alarming regularity, sometimes as a tool of political violence but mostly between rival operators. An outburst last spring resulted in more than 60 killings in just a single area.

“I think it most closely resembled historically the Mafia in the United States, the difference being that while the Mafia concentrated on illegitimate enterprises, the taxi industry was legitimate and provided some good,” said Dipak Patel, chief director of the Transportation Department’s national taxi task force.

Patel, who oversees efforts to introduce regulatory legislation, said some toughness was crucial to get the minibus business operating without help from white rulers. “The skilled organizers were initially needed for the industry,” he said. “Now the organized criminals have outlived their usefulness.”

Patel believes the regulatory efforts, including an industrywide registration and permit system, are having some success. Now the worry is what crime bosses will target next.