|
The 1980s: Organised Crime Comes of Age
Street gangs and the more sophisticated crime syndicates, irrespective of whether they were based in Cape Town, Johannesburg or Durban, had developed many common characteristics by 1980. The different social, political and economic factors which influenced their coming into existence meant that some regional characteristics were maintained, but their core business was similar, as was their modus operandi. The increasing role of narcotics as a commodity in which syndicates and gangs traded, worked against any regional isolation. There was a growing dependence by crime syndicates on country-wide networks of criminal organisations which assisted in obtaining and distributing drugs. Profits resulting from illegal drug operations had increased dramatically since the 1970s. Before Mandrax was banned in the mid-seventies, a Mandrax tablet could be purchased over the counter at a chemist for 5 cents. By the early 1980s, it was selling on street corners and in shebeens for about R15 per tablet or ‘button’. Organised criminal activities were therefore becoming more lucrative which was one of the reasons why the sophistication gap between ordinary street gangs and better organised crime syndicates was widening. The degree of sophistication required to import Mandrax from India or from Zambia, and then to distribute it through a network of syndicates throughout the country, by far exceeded the degree of organisation which street gangs had to display in order to defend their territory, engage in local crimes and sell drugs on street corners or shebeens.
Gangs did, and still do provide a natural first phase in the careers of many criminals before they move on to more sophisticated criminal organisations. An understanding of street gang dynamics and how they function will therefore assist in a better understanding of the more sophisticated criminal groups.
Detectives stationed in Cape Town during the early 1980s confirmed the distinction between the territorially-based street gangs and the syndicates which focused on dagga or Mandrax. No clear definitions existed to enable the police on the ground to distinguish between gangs and syndicates. They generally referred to the more sophisticated and better organised criminal groups as syndicates.
On the Cape Flats, each police station had the responsibility of policing those gangs operating within its area. This was regarded as a routine policing job. The gang leaders and many of their members were generally known to local police officers. The fact that they were territorially based, enabled the local station commander to keep a semblance of control over gang activities in the station area, but it became more difficult due to the growing number of gangs.19 In 1982, a count in thirty areas of the Cape Flats established that 280 groups identified themselves as gangs. Nearly eighty per cent of the gang members interviewed, said their group was more than 100 strong, half put the figure at 200, and several as high as 2 000. A rough estimate of 80 000 youths identified themselves as gang members.20
No central database existed to keep track of gang members and their activities. Only in the mid-1980s were the first steps taken by the police to collect information about gangs when instructions were given to police stations to keep files on specific gangs. The result was that station commanders developed an elementary database on gang activities and gang members in their station area. This information, however, was not necessarily shared with other station commanders in the area because it did not become part of a central database. The police were still looking at incidents of gangsterism and not at the phenomenon itself. Incidents normally occur within a certain policing area while the phenomenon cuts across such boundaries. Syndicates that did not confine their activities to certain territories were therefore only marginally affected by these new instructions.
From the perspective of the detectives involved in the Western Cape, the membership of gangs varied, but generally consisted of between twenty to forty members. The discrepancy between their estimate and the findings by Pinnock that the street gangs were much larger, probably arises from the fact that the detectives would mainly focus on those members who had had a brush with the law and not on those who remained in the background.
What Pinnock describes as the family ‘mafias’ and the merchant syndicates were more difficult to police. They were not tied to a specific geographic terrain and were more sophisticated than the street gangs. The close family or ‘brotherhood’ relations made it difficult for the police to obtain information about the activities of individuals within these organisations. They had links with criminal organisations in other parts of South Africa and abroad which enabled them to have a regular supply of narcotics, mainly in the form of dagga and Mandrax. The national borders and international airports were relatively well-controlled, making it very risky to use these ports of entry to bring in narcotics. Although drugs were successfully smuggled through these entry points, and dagga exported through harbours, more ingenious avenues were sometimes adopted to ensure the necessary supplies. Some Cape Town syndicates were known to make use of the Hadj, the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, to smuggle Mandrax back into the country. Syndicate members would leave the country with other pilgrims, change flights in Saudi Arabia and travel to India to collect the Mandrax, before returning to Nairobi from where they would link up again with returning pilgrims. During 1981, Cape Town newspapers reported the seizure 370 000 tablets worth R2,2 million at street prices.21 Kruger gold coins were a popular form of payment for Mandrax in India and the Far East.
Flights to India and elsewhere to acquire drugs represented the more advanced and sophisticated side of South African criminal organisations. The more immediate horizons of the most indigenous crime syndicates lay no further than South Africa’s neighbouring states. There appeared to be more than enough potential for exchange and growth and the terrain was more familiar to those South Africans criminals who were not necessarily worldwise. Connections could easily be established as a result of the fact that thousands of migrant mine workers had travelled to South Africa from Southern African countries to work in gold mines over many decades. In addition, the impact of the Portuguese revolution in 1974 and the subsequent move of many Portuguese nationals from Mozambique and Angola to South Africa, established language, family and many other links which criminal organisations benefited from. Not only did these links benefit South African criminal groups, the same happened to criminal groups in neighbouring states.
Organised Crime Groups in South Africa’s Neighbouring States
Zambia, Mozambique and Swaziland provided the most popular transit routes for the smuggling of Mandrax into South Africa. During the early 1980s, individuals and small criminal groups directed these operations from cities such as Lusaka, Maputo and Mbabane in Swaziland. In addition to the expansion of links and criminal activities from South Africa into neighbouring states, developments in the Southern African region appear to have led to similar and simultaneous expansions from within the region into South Africa.
According to a police undercover agent with wide experience in Southern African states, organised criminal groups to the north of South Africa were in their infancy at the beginning of the 1980s. In the mid-1980s increasing numbers of ‘fortune hunters’ arrived in Southern African states such as Zaire, Zambia and Zimbabwe. They came from countries such as France, Portugal and Britain, but also from Greece, Lebanon, India, Israel and some Central European states. Many of them set up small import/export businesses to use as a guise for legal or illegal business opportunities which they were seeking to establish. They mostly arrived as individuals not involved with existing criminal groups. Once established, they soon made contact with local African entrepreneurs, smugglers and criminals to explore business opportunities. The locals had contacts through which they could obtain goods such as cobalt and other metals, ivory, diamonds, or drugs such as Mandrax by illegal means.
A marriage of convenience was often forged between the foreign fortune hunters and local operators which worked out to their mutual benefit. Local Africans could supply the goods while the foreigners were in a position to buy and smuggle these to the ‘rich’ markets of South Africa. The relatively tightly controlled borders and airports and the harsh discriminatory laws in place in South Africa at the time, made it very risky for Africans from states to the north to enter the country in order to dispose of their goods or to make contact with local criminal groups.
For the white foreigners living in Zaire or Zambia this was less problematic. They could visit South Africa and establish contact with existing syndicates. It was only in the early 1990s, when political changes were apparent and when discriminatory laws were relaxed, that increasing numbers of Africans and Asians from neighbouring states could enter South Africa legally in order to further their illegal objectives.
According to the undercover agent, the joint operations of the mid-1980s between African smugglers who supplied the illegally obtained goods, and the foreigners who acted as buyers and sellers, represented the infancy of what later became far more sophisticated organised criminal groups in South Africa’s neighbouring states. According to police sources, these syndicates, which engaged in cross-border crimes with South Africans, had no particular structures or hierarchies. They varied in size but tended to be small. Criminal groups were often made up of friends and acquaintances, family bonds sometimes formed the basis or they constituted themselves in a manner similar to partnerships where different members came from different parts of the country to co-operate on specific ventures. Networks were established through which illegally obtained goods could be obtained and marketed. Hierarchical structures with one boss in charge were not common.
The most popular route used to smuggle illegal goods into South Africa was the heavy transport road from Zambia to South Africa used by large trucks and trailers. Ivory, copper, cobalt and large quantities of Mandrax were transported in this way by the newly formed syndicates. Occasional cash flow problems and the frequent inability by South African purchasers to pay in hard currency, led to barter transactions becoming common. Motor vehicles stolen in South Africa soon became key items in the barter trade. They were driven across the borders in payment for illegal goods supplied from the north and sometimes shipped by way of containers to countries along the African coast and beyond. Police who followed these developments, are of the view that the rapid expansion of cross-border criminal transactions in the second half of the 1980s, led to an ever growing demand for stolen cars to enable South African criminal groups to pay for the goods received. As a result, car hijackings dramatically increased in South Africa and became a common way of speeding up payment. Towards the late-1980s, transnational crime in the Southern African region was becoming a lucrative enterprise, only marginally hampered by policing activities on both sides of the borders.
Crime statistics as published in the annual reports of the Commissioner of the former South African Police (SAP), and subsequently by the SAPS, showed a sharp increase in crimes in which organised criminal groups were likely to engage. Theft of motor vehicles is an example. While the statistics were causing alarm and while the police were aware that stolen vehicles were smuggled across borders in exchange for drugs, the strategy to counter this development continued to be based on the conventional approach of investigating the growing number of individual incidents of vehicle theft, albeit with the assistance of more detectives. Criminal organisations were expanding, adapting themselves and engaging in new criminal activities. To counter these developments effectively, a police response was necessary which took the underlying dynamics which were shaping organised crime in the country into account.
The Police Response to Organised Crime in the 1980s
Most syndicates that were involved in these transnational criminal operations, were known to the police. But the focus of police investigations was more on the individual operatives than on the criminal conspiracies or the networks which were behind the organised criminal conduct. The notion of targeting the proceeds of crime did not exist. To police management throughout the country, the phenomenon of organised crime was not yet a form of criminal conduct which required a specialised investigative approach in order to effectively counter its growing influence on crime. In 1982, the Commissioner of the SAP, in his annual report to parliament, reported that "[t]he smuggling networks and smuggling methods with regard to mandrax (metaxalone) remained unchanged."
Although specialised police units to investigate organised crime were not yet in existence, the regular detectives in the early 1980s did co-operate with members of the South African Narcotics Bureau (SANAB) when investigating cases relating to narcotics. SANAB consisted of special police units, operating country-wide, with the task of investigating offences relating to immorality and prostitution, unlawful dealings in liquor, and narcotics-related crimes.
For those SAP detectives who were investigating cases involving transnational crimes, an additional problem often presented itself. Requests by the SAP for assistance from foreign police agencies, such as the Indian police, were often ignored. South Africa was isolated internationally and police investigators had to rely on personal contacts for assistance from police in other countries. South Africa was at that stage not a member of Interpol. The need for international police co-operation increased significantly during the 1980s. The drug smuggling routes were expanding rapidly, not only from Southern Africa, but also from the Far East, Europe and the United States of America. Increased illegal traffic occurred between South Africa and Southern African states in goods such as endangered species, metals, motor vehicles, as well as narcotics.
South African crime statistics relating to the theft of motor vehicles, and statements made by the police management at the time, confirm the tendency of stolen vehicles increasingly being taken across South Africa borders. The number of reported thefts of motor vehicles had risen from 36 762 in 1980 to 59 936 in 1987, a 63 per cent increase. In response, the police took the first steps to form special police units for the exclusive purpose of investigating motor vehicle theft cases in 1984. These units became part of the formal structures of the police in 1986 when the Vehicle Theft Units were constituted country-wide. Cases of vehicle hijacking were recorded as motor vehicle theft as the police at that stage did not have a separate crime code for the recording of vehicle hijackings.
During 1986, the reported theft of motor vehicles had shown a steep rise compared to the previous year. In this year, 59 436 cars were reported stolen compared to 48 584 during 1985 — a 22 per cent increase.22 No explanation was offered in the annual police report for this phenomenon other than a reference to the security situation in the country. In his report to Parliament for 1987, the Commissioner of Police specifically referred to the increasing occurrence of the theft of motor vehicles. The explanation which he offered, was that "[t]he increase in the number of motor vehicles on South Africa’s roads has emerged as a contributing factor to the prodigious increase in the number of vehicles that are reported stolen annually."23
From the same Annual Report, however, it is apparent that the police management was not only fully appraised of the steep rise in motor vehicle theft, it was also aware that criminals with cross-border links were involved.
"Vehicle thieves make use of extremely sophisticated methods of changing a vehicle drastically, which makes the identification thereof, after it has been found, an almost impossible task. Stolen motor vehicles have been found, inter alia, in Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Botswana, Lesotho, Transkei and Ciskei ... Technological progress (especially in the field of computers) has created many opportunities for the vehicle thief. Computer fraud, especially of registration documents, makes it possible to register the same vehicle up to thirteen times."24
The reference by the police commissioner to the ‘vehicle thieves’ who were involved, rather than to the sophisticated organised criminal groups who were responsible for this form of transnational crime, leads to the inference that the police management was still approaching this phenomenon as consisting of individual incidents of theft instead of dealing with these cases of motor vehicle theft as merely one element in a far wider range of criminal activities engaged in by organised criminal groups. The focus seems to have been on theft cases and not on the broader conspiracies of organised criminal groups which would require special skills to investigate. A detective who investigated vehicle theft cases in Johannesburg in the early 1980s, put it as follows: "Between 1980 and 1985 no one focused on busting these people because it required special skills."
By 1986, the Detective Branch of the SAP consisted of five separate units: Vehicle Theft Units, the South African Narcotics Bureau (SANAB), the Murder and Robbery Squad, the Stock Theft Units and the Gold and Diamond Units. The policing response to the rise in motor vehicle theft, and to the cross-border smuggling of stolen vehicles, was to increase the number of Motor Vehicle Theft Units. By 1987, 25 such units were in existence throughout the country. Intelligence-driven operations targeting those criminal organisations which were involved with car theft on an organised basis were not a priority. In fact, according to senior police officers, members of the detective service, at that stage, had not received any intelligence training courses. Courses offering training in the handling of human and technical intelligence assets were available for members of the Security Branch and not for detectives.
While some South African detectives were concerned about the growth of cross-border crime and its impact on crime levels within South Africa, police management at the time was focusing its attention and resources more on countering the growing political opposition and revolt against the apartheid government. Members of the Special Branch of the security police were the ‘blue-eyed boys’ and not the detectives. They received better training and more resources. The strategic focus of police training in the 1980s was on equipping the force to deal with the growing unrest situation in the country.
At a time when the detectives, who were investigating activities of organised criminal groups, were still focusing on individual crimes more than on the criminal conspiracies which underlie the activities of such criminal groups, the security police were concentrating their efforts on investigating conspiracies, real or imagined, among government opponents. Substantial resources were made available for this purpose in order to neutralise political opposition. Methods adopted by the security police included the infiltration of opposition groups, the use of undercover agents, wire-tapping, the compiling of proper data bases and the establishment of detailed files on thousands of individuals. The protection of the political status quo was clearly a higher priority for the government than crime prevention. Systematic investigations into the networks and the nature of the criminal groups which were contributing to rising crime were not deemed necessary.
Detectives active in the mid-1980s did suggest to management that detective units with special skills should be used to investigate the activities of crime syndicates. They suggested that such specialised units, for example, could be attached to units of SANAB which were responsible for investigating offences relating to narcotics. However, these suggestions were ignored by management.
What aggravated the difficult position in which detectives found themselves was that, in the 1980s, skilled detectives were frequently instructed to report for border duty at very short notice. They had to report to posts in Namibia, Northern Transvaal, Pongola in KwaZulu-Natal or to locations along the Swaziland border in order to fulfil patrol duties for up to six months. "We had to walk patrols and were not allowed to focus on people who were smuggling drugs, cars and guns through border posts. We suggested this, but it was rejected."25 In addition, the growing need for investigative skills within the security police often resulted in overnight transfers of experienced detectives from the detective branch to the Special Branch of the security police. When popular detective commanders took such transfers to the Special Branch, it sometimes happened that a number of the detectives who had worked under him would apply to move with him. In the words of a senior detective: "This affected our work negatively. Organised crime took the gap and expanded."
During the two years between 1983 and 1985, the number of persons arrested in South Africa for possession of or dealing in Mandrax rose from 601 in 1983 to 2 658 in 1985, an increase of 342 per cent. Even though the number of persons arrested, or the quantities of narcotics seized by the police, do not necessarily constitute an accurate reflection of the real extent of the problem, it should have been clear that organised forms of crime were in fact having an impact. Police management, however, did not appear to take this growing trend seriously. When assessing the factors which were contributing to the rising crime levels, the activities of crime syndicates were not regarded as noteworthy. In 1985, the Commissioner of Police reported to Parliament that "Factors which contributed to the increase in crimes in which dishonesty is an element, for example housebreaking, car theft, robbery, shoplifting, fraud ... are still, as in the previous year, the protracted drought, a continued deterioration in the economic situation and large scale unemployment. Add to this the unrest situation, which has been dragging on since September 1984 and which has resulted in a serious drain of manpower to the riot-torn areas and which can be blamed for the tremendous increase in offences such as public violence, arson ..."26
A year later, in 1986, the Commissioner of Police reported that "[t]he year under review was once again marked by an unstable security situation in which the revolutionary onslaught intensified and violent unrest was rife. This seriously hampered the performance of normal police duties... A large part of the South African Police was used on a full-time basis to combat unrest and this placed an added responsibility on the already overburdened force."27
In 1989, the year in which F W de Klerk replaced P W Botha as President, the general increase in reported crimes continued to be explained without any reference to the contributory role of crime syndicates or organised crime structures. The Commissioner of Police reported as follows: "It is enlightening to note that crimes such as robbery, housebreaking, fraud, forgery and theft show an increase. One of the main reasons for this is the weakening economy, while strikes and unemployment can be seen as contributory factors."28
From the same report, it is apparent that there had been a growing sophistication and an expansion in the activities of organised criminal groups. The Commissioner reported that members of SANAB had found four factories producing methaqualone during that year and that several arrests had been made. The report further laments that "[a]n overall shortage of sufficient funds, however, prevents the successful penetration of drug networks ..."
Detectives confirm that, during the second half of the 1980s, Nigerian criminals were already involved in drug trafficking in Hillbrow, Johannesburg. They kept a low profile and would generally not become involved in crimes such as motor vehicle theft or housebreaking. Detectives are of the view that the Nigerians were the first of the foreign criminals to become active in South Africa on a noticeable scale. They tended to operate as individuals and relied on a network of fellow Nigerians within and outside the country. Because of legal restrictions, and because many of them were in the country illegally, they found travelling within the country or across the borders too risky and therefore confined their activities to the greater Johannesburg area. A soft foundation was being put into place on which large scale expansion could rapidly take place once circumstances were more favourable.
During 1990, the increasing role played by organised criminal groups seems to have become more apparent to police management, judging from comments made in the annual police report. It is ironic that the growing involvement in organised crime by elements within the security forces and other state structures must have contributed to this realisation. By 1990, these elements had integrated themselves into the criminal world. There was still no direct reference by the Commissioner of Police to crime syndicates or organised crime structures, but the nature of the crimes to which he referred in his report to Parliament, was such that they could only have been committed by organised groups. For example, "[c]onfiscation of astronomic quantities of heroin, cocaine and methaqualone suggests that international drug cartels have identified South Africa as an important market"; and "[t]hirty nine Vehicle Theft Units are in operation (in 1987 there were 25). About 45% of vehicles stolen are taken to neighbouring countries."29
These are alarming statistics. They suggest that, at least as far as the crime of motor vehicle theft was concerned, criminal groups had managed to gain a firm grip on crime and were responsible for a substantial portion of car thefts in South Africa. Between 1982 and 1990, reported vehicle theft had increased by 54 per cent from 44 483 to 68 649. Based on the statement of the Commissioner of Police, about 30 890 motor vehicles must have been smuggled across South African borders to neighbouring countries in 1990. Even though the Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and the Ciskei (TBVC) were regarded by the government of the time as neighbouring countries, police officers involved with Vehicle Theft Units maintained that only a very small proportion of stolen vehicles were taken into the Transkei and other TBVC countries. The figure of about 30 890 stolen vehicles being smuggled across South Africa’s borders in 1990 is therefore astounding. What is also clear from the above statement is that a close and lucrative co-operation between criminal groups in South Africa and criminals in neighbouring countries had been established.
|
|
|