Ferial Haffajee and Stuart Hess
You can teach an old dog new tricks, as a legion of former apartheid spies, torturers and key dirty-tricks operatives are showing.
Many are the frontmen of business’s push into Africa and are leaders in the private security industry, which is worth billions of rands. A former general, for example, heads a vehicle tracking company while another makes millions by planning security for blue chip companies.
“We specialise in dealing in unstable situations,” says former spy mastermind Craig Williamson. With a new suave image complete with pinstripes and a cellphone, he is at the cutting edge of exports to Angola.
He started off shipping potatoes, other fresh produce and beer to the Southern African state, believing it was a place where South African business could grow.
His business has been so lucrative, he has now moved up a rung to arrange financing. In the new field he can also use old expertise, tapping old networks to secure funding for companies which want to get into the export business.
“I tell people that I can organise things. The banks won’t touch Angola,” he says, adding prospects of an outbreak of war in that country doesn’t faze him because it’s where he operates best.
Executive Outcomes, the mercenary outfit which made a packet as hired guns in Angola and Sierra Leone, has reportedly diversified. It has started subsidiary companies which have moved from guarding mines to active mining. They are employed at dollar hourly rates as consultants for governments and companies which want to trade in Africa. They advise, introduce and facilitate.
“If companies want to invest in Africa, we advise them and introduce them to people. Africa’s my market,” says Lafras Luitingh, a co-founder of Executive Outcomes and former Civil Co-operation Bureau (CCB) operative.
Police jobs in outfits like the CCB, the security branch and the vice squad were saved in the past for the best officers and were coveted because they presented opportunities to make a quick buck on the side. These came from backhanders, pay- offs, diamond or drug deals, car theft and sometimes ivory smuggling.
The spoils of office and lavish golden handshakes have been used by many to start legitimate businesses. Many former front companies continue to operate under different names.
That’s not how former detective Koos van Rooyen started his Durban-based company, Wolf Security. “I took home just over a thousand a month in the force,” says the security honcho who counts blue chip companies like Toyota, South African Breweries and Nedcor among his clients.
Van Rooyen was the officer who bagged Robert McBride in a manhunt in the Eighties. The wounded McBride had escaped from police cells and ran into the bushes. Van Rooyen was sent in to flush out McBride because he knew the young guerrilla from Wentworth while he served there as police station commander.
Many ex-policemen have privatised their experience. A study of leading security companies shows they are staffed and owned in the main by former policemen.
Charlie Landman, the notorious former head of the Brixton murder and robbery unit, is the head of investigations at one of the largest security companies, Khulani Springbok Patrols.
Roy Allen, a former leading light in the Directorate of Covert Collection, is responsible for guarding Johannesburg International airport for Fidelity Guards.
The cheekiest company must be that of former CCB operative Abraham “Slang” van Zyl. He is managing director of Tactical Risk Control – also known as TRC – a security company based in Gauteng. The company was first named Incom Investigations.
With a staff of 230, Van Zyl provides sercurity at high-risk industrial sites and delivery vehicles. He has carried out investigations in London and Greece as well.
“We are very well respected for the quality of our work,” said Van Zyl, who also provides protection to South African VIPs.
In the Eighties, a number of seedy Hillbrow hotels were known front operations for the likes of Van Zyl and fellow CCB operative Ferdi Barnard.
Today others – like former military general and wunderkind Chris Thirion – run restaurants.
Die Werf in Pretoria has been featured in many magazines because it apparently serves a fine bredie, while a consortium of former dirty-tricks operatives are said to own an oddly named Yeoville watering hole called The Englishman.
Quay 4 is one of the best-known eating establishments at the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront in Cape Town. Popular among locals and tourists, it offers both an la carte restaurant and a tavern for those with lower budgets.
The bar is owned by former security policeman Louis van Niekerk, who also has a stake in other taverns like the popular Cantina Tequila franchises at the Woodbridge Restaurant in Milnerton.
Additional reporting by Alet van Rensburg