Summary
From the article:
South Africa has for many years been a trafficking hub. Drugs, animals, rare plants and people are smuggled with ease. Financial and cyber crime are rampant, too. But three worrying trends are relatively new: the growth of the illicit economy, the rise of extortion mafias, and the capture of policing and politics by criminal elements.
Edward Kieswetter, who until April led South Africa’s tax authority, reckons that the size of illicit business has grown from 5% of GDP two decades ago to 12-15% of GDP this year—at least as large as the legal manufacturing industry. Legitimate firms are under pressure. Roughly 70% of cigarettes and 20% of alcohol are sold illegally. Illicit mining alone accounted for at least 60bn rand ($3.3bn or 0.8% of GDP) in lost formal output in 2024. Scores of “wash stations” mix contaminated petrol. Mr Kieswetter estimates that illicit firms cost the state up to 300bn rand annually in uncollected taxes, enough to fund the health budget.
The second growing threat is extortion. Around a decade ago a “construction mafia” emerged in the province of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). Members threatened to sabotage infrastructure projects unless they received a cut of the contract. These groups have since spread across the country. Cape Town’s government has a dedicated “war room” to organise protection for more than 50 projects. The criminals are “crafty”, notes Geordin Hill-Lewis, the mayor; mafia members try to infiltrate security firms hired to protect the building sites they lust after.
Cases of kidnapping for ransom have more than tripled over the past decade. Businesspeople are hiring more security as a result. Intercape, a bus firm, has recorded more than 220 violent incidents against its fleet since 2020, carried out by criminals linked to the notorious “taxi” industry, providers of minibuses that resent formal competition. Johann Ferreira, Intercape’s boss, has said he rejected demands for millions of rands in “compensation” from these firms, claiming that what used to be a low-level war with the taxi industry had escalated into full-scale attacks.
The poorest suffer most. Some gangsters demand protection money from teachers. “Water mafia” groups sabotage municipal pipes and bribe or muscle their way into contracts for water tankers. Then they charge poor residents by the bucket. Cape Town, which is trying to fight back, has deployed 200 law-enforcement officers to protect staff who deliver public services in the gang-ridden outskirts.
As organised crime has metastasised it has infected the state—the third and most worrying trend. The Madlanga commission was established after Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, the most senior officer in KZN, made explosive allegations about collusion among police, politicians and mobsters. So far its work has led to the departure of South Africa’s police minister, the police commissioner (the country’s most senior officer), his deputy, the head of the police’s organised crime unit and the lawyer leading an anti-corruption division within the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA). At the centre of events is Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala, an alleged mobster who is on trial for attempted murder. Hearings have accused him of buying off officers with cash and gifts including a score of impala and doses of Ozempic, a weight-loss drug.