Paul Kirk
Lucrative illegal casinos in Durban are operating with the full permission of both the police and the provincial Department of Justice.
Driving down West Street the main drag from upmarket Berea to the beach the casino is hardly visible. It is only when one descends past the burly thug of a bouncer at the top of a flight of stairs that one realises the venue next to the shoe store is a casino called Queens.
It is one of a string of casinos that have not been granted licences to operate by the provincial Gambling Board but which conduct their business without fear of prosecution.
The operation is one of at least four casinos that are protected in terms of a secret agreement between the police, the Department of Justice and two of Durban’s most notorious illegal casino owners.
This week the Mail & Guardian obtained a copy of an agreement signed in April 1999 between state attorney Charles Bell and Carl van der Merwe, an attorney representing the illegal casinos. The deal is still in force.
Two weeks ago, in a joint police and army operation, Queens was raided in an operation spearheaded by members of the Pine Parkade satellite police station.
After the raid the owner of the casino, David Winter, produced a copy of the agreement and forced the police to return all his gambling equipment and leave him to carry on operating.
Police at the Pine Parkade satellite station confirmed the raid and authenticated the copy of the agreement the M&G has obtained.
The deal makes a mockery of state attempts to claim that the suspended head of KwaZulu-Natal’s organised crime unit, Senior Superintendent Piet Meyer, was the sole source of protection for unlicensed casinos. Meyer is currently on trial in Durban facing a string of charges, including taking a king’s ransom in bribes from illegal casinos.
At the time the deal was signed Van der Merwe, acting on behalf of illegal casinos, had launched several court cases against the minister of safety and security and the premier of KwaZulu-Natal. He was attempting to use legal loopholes to attempt to get his clients’ casinos declared legal.
Rather than defend the cases in court, Van der Merwe persuaded justice department officials and senior policemen to settle out of court. In exchange for not proceeding with the court cases, Durban’s law enforcement agencies signed a secret deal with Van der Merwe’s clients, agreeing not to raid them.
Known for specialising in high-profile cases, Van der Merwe has near-celebrity status in Durban as the best criminal lawyer that money can buy. He is also a former policeman and at one time commanded the South African Narcotics Bureau. He has close links to most of the senior police in the province.
The agreement was signed by Bell. It reads: “Respondents [the police] undertake not to harass staff and clients/patrons or to investigate the applicant’s businesses unduly.
“If statements under oath or substantiated information is obtained by respondents, which necessitate police inquiries to be conducted, then the respondent will inform the applicants to desist from such activities, failing which respondents will proceed in terms of the law against them.”
The last line read: “This agreement will not be made public.”
The effect of this is that illegal casinos that hired Van der Merwe were to be given warning of any police operation against them.
National Gambling Board representative Tale Makham asked the M&G for a copy of the document for her legal team to study. She was not prepared to comment until legal opinion had been obtained.
Trevor Erlink, one of the protected casino operators, is presently outside the country, while Winter was not available for comment.
Lionel Mtshali, the Premier of the province, was not contactable at the time of going to press.
The commander of the special police unit set up to tackle illegal gambling in Durban, Superintendent Gert Grobler, confirmed the agreement existed but said he could not discuss any of the specifics of it due to the secrecy clause in the document.
Said Grobler: “There is an agreement, that I will confirm. Unfortunately it is a problem that I inherited, but I do not think it is an unsurmountable stumbling block. We could always go to court and have the agreement overturned and we are looking at that option.”
He said most of the illegal casinos in Durban are closing down for fear of police operations apart from those covered by the agreement.
State attorney Krish Govender said it had to be remembered that when the agreement was signed illegal casino operators were operating in a “grey area”.