Mandela claims crime is waning, but criminal syndicates could be gaining strength, writes David Beresford
South Africa appears to be teetering on the brink of the nightmare of crime which is reality for Russia and Colombia, in the wake of the recent heists and the controversy surrounding this country’s so-called “public enemy no 1”, Collin Chauke.
A recent report from the World Economic Forum said South Africa’s organised crime was second only to Colombia’s, with its frightening drug cartels, and Russia’s, with its omni-present mafia.
Local criminologists scoffed at the report, arguing there was no comparison, largely because there was no evidence that organised crime in South Africa had infiltrated the state and corrupted high-level officials. But Chauke’s escapades suggest that confidence on the point might be misplaced.
It transpired recently that the alleged mastermind behind the heists had been a guest at a party hosted by Deputy Minister for Environmental Affairs and Tourism Peter Mokaba while he was on the run from police.
And at the weekend Chauke himself told City Press – cheekily meeting its chief crime reporter, Phalane Motale, outside Soshanguve police station – that the top detective hunting him, Bushy Engelbrecht, was part of a criminal syndicate together with other top police officers.
Mokaba has denied inviting Chauke to his party and, coming from a wanted criminal, the escapee’s allegations about senior police officers obviously have to be treated with a huge dose of scepticism.
But his allegations, against an acknowledged background of widespread corruption in the South African Police Service – 1996 figures show one in four officers in the greater Johannesburg were under criminal investigation – does offer the warning that the canker might extend further into the criminal justice system and government than generally acknowledged.
South Africa appears particularly vulnerable to organised crime at the moment. The credibility of the information is open to question, but police intelligence estimates that there are more than 190 crime syndicates – more sophisticated, organised groups, excluding common gangs – operating in the country, and claim to be keeping nearly 2 000 prime suspects linked with them under surveillance.
They include elements of the Russian mafia, which are involved in diamonds and weapons smuggling; Chinese triads, which have specialised in the trade of endangered species; and Nigerian drug rings.
Drug trafficking seems to be their favourite activity, thanks to South Africa’s geographic position, burgeoning air-links, long and poorly controlled borders and sophisticated internal infrastructure in the way of communications and banking facilities.
Vehicle-related crimes are also popular – stolen cars from South Africa being found as far afield as Portugal and Cyprus – but many of the syndicates diversify in the way of their corporate models, engaging in criminal activities where opportunities beckon and conducting legitimate operations as fronts and to help money-laundering.
Whether organised crime is a recent development in South Africa or has simply gone unrecognised is a matter of debate.
Mark Shaw, at the Institute for Security Studies, argues that “crime grows most rapidly in periods of political transition and violence, when state resources are concentrated in certain areas only and gaps emerge in which organised criminal gangs may operate”. He cites the former Soviet Union as the most obvious example.
There was, clearly, a degree of organised crime before South Africa’s political settlement – notably among the Cape gangs, which imported mandrax, and the short-lived “Boere Mafia”.
But it does appear that the political and diplomatic isolation of South Africa during the apartheid years protected it to some extent from the organised-crime phenomenon which was rapidly going international in tandem with the growth of the “global village”.
At the same time the ground was effectively being prepared for the development of organised crime syndicates with establishment of strategic alliances between elements of the security services and the criminal underworld, reflected in the involvement of the special forces in such activities as the smuggling of ivory and rhino horn.
How far this process went is not known, because, despite sensational disclosures about hit-squad activities, little is known about the special units which engaged in this kind of activity and what happened to its operatives with the collapse of apartheid.
What is known about the Civil Co-operation Bureau, for example, is limited largely to the activities of its “Region 6”. The activities of the other regions remain a mystery.
But the allegations levelled at the former head of the country’s chemical and biological weapons programme, Wouther Basson – who is facing charges of mass-producing mandrax and Ecstacy – raises the possibility that the National Party government, whether intentionally or not, literally created an “army of criminals” which is still in arms.
If South Africa is effectively at war with organised crime it is appropriate that the African National Congress government has committed a large part of its intelligence assets to the battle.
The secret service is believed to have been tasked with investigating organised foreign crime which might impinge on South Africa. Military intelligence has been given responsibility for controlling the borders and monitoring weapons smuggling. And the National Intelligence Agency – which boasts a staff of about 3 000 operatives and analysts – is becoming increasingly involved in combating crime.
But the contribution of the services is believed to be suffering from intense rivalry between the agencies and in-fighting within them between the “old guard” and the recruits from the liberation movement.
The frustration of the government with the intelligence agencies was reflected in an outburst by President Nelson Mandela at last week’s opening of Parliament, when he denounced “bad apples” in the services, describing them as an “affront to our security and our pride as a nation”.
Despite the president’s boast that South African crime statistics are improving – with reductions in the incidence of some serious categories of offences – other figures showing the decline of convictions suggest that the forces of law and order are alarmingly on the retreat. Convictions for using and dealing in drugs, for example, collapsed from 46 468 in 1991/92 to 19 895 in 1995/96.
The wholesale flight of experienced detectives from the force (including the highly regarded former commissioner with responsibility for fighting organised crime, Nieels Venter) has left the police service badly weakened. If Chauke is seen to be laughing at South African society, it is not without justification.