In 1988, the government appointed a commission under Police Commissioner, General Hennie de Witt, to look into the restructuring of the SAP. The result was a restructuring in 1990-91 of the SAP into five divisions. One of the new divisions was the Crime Combating and Investigation Division (CCI). It was the result of a merger which occurred on 1 April 1991 of the Criminal Investigation Division (CID), also known as the Detective Branch, and the former Security Branch. The newly constituted Crime Combating and Investigation Division (CCI) now consisted of individuals who pursued one of two broad approaches towards policing. The detectives who were formerly part of the CID, in general, focused on investigative methods of operating with a view to produce evidence for prosecution purposes. The former members of the Security Branch, on the other hand, were more used to intelligence-driven operations not necessarily aimed at producing court-related evidence. In 1990-1, individual supporters of these two different approaches were involved in attempts to shape the new CCI in such a way that their emphasis would carry the day. Senior members from the former Detective Service wanted to ensure that members of the former Security Branch did not gain control of the new division, and members of the former Security Branch were attempting to achieve the opposite.

The interplay of these different forces came to the fore in a crucial police conference which was organised by the CCI and held in April 1991. It was a conference at which the management of the CCI wanted to make a serious attempt to assess national crime patterns and to develop strategies to combat crime more effectively. Detectives and former members of the Security Branch from all parts of the country participated.

For the first time in South Africa’s policing history, the police officially identified organised crime as a key contributing factor to the high levels of some of the crime categories and decided that a new approach was necessary to combat it. In the words of a police participant in the conference: "We decided that organised crime was running amok and that it had to be addressed in an organised way." Recognition was given to the fact that combating organised crime would require specialised investigation methods and techniques, some of them unconventional. Those supporting the investigative approach towards dealing with crime managed to steer the conference towards a decision that an Organised Crime Unit should be established. The thinking was that this Unit would be aimed specifically at prosecuting those ‘planners’ and ‘organisers’ of crime who, until then, could not be successfully investigated through conventional methods and techniques.

A new approach in crime investigation was to be followed. For the purpose of investigating crimes emanating from the conduct of organised criminal groups, the focus would be on the gathering of intelligence on the syndicates concerned and then making the collated intelligence available on an ongoing basis to the investigating officer for follow-up investigation. This was a different approach from the standard technique of only using informers to supply information. That was, and still is an important part of many criminal investigations. In future, a clear distinction would be made between, on the one hand, information which the detective obtains from an informer, and on the other, crime intelligence which is received from various quarters, including undercover agents, and is then properly collated, evaluated and interpreted for use by detectives in project-oriented investigations. Crime intelligence was therefore to become central in such investigations.

The decision to focus on the ‘planners’ and ‘organisers’ of crime amounted to a fundamental departure from the conventional approach of relying on the investigator and his police docket to investigate the activities of the individual suspect who had committed the crime. There was an attempt to move from a reactive incident-driven approach towards a more proactive and holistic approach. Crime intelligence was to become a key factor in the investigations of not only the individual suspect, but the entire criminal conspiracy responsible for the crime. No police structures were in place to specifically gather, collate and interpret crime intelligence for the purpose of combating organised crime. Arising from a decision taken at the conference, consideration was given to the establishment of Organised Crime Intelligence Units (OCIU) to meet this need.

The OCIUs were to be based on the following principles:

The OCIU is an intelligence unit which gathers intelligence/evidence against organised crime groups which affect the national interest.



In order to succeed with the gathering of intelligence, the OCIU operates in a covert and semi-covert manner.



The OCIU meets the intelligence needs of the investigating officers and is therefore a tool for the investigating officers of the Crime Prevention and Investigation division of the police.



The OCIU gathers intelligence relating to crime and is not involved with any politics or ideology.



The OCIU specialises in targeted intelligence gathering in respect of previously identified crime syndicates.

The identification of those crime syndicates that warranted special attention from the OCIUs was largely in the hands of detectives. Those who were investigating cases of serious crimes in which more and more suspects appeared to have links with each other, would report their observations to their superiors with a view to obtain the assistance of an OCIU.

OCIUs, therefore, were to make crime intelligence available to the various specialised units of the police, including detectives dealing with organised crime cases. It was decided that, as a start, the four largest provinces in the country, namely the Witwatersrand, Eastern Cape, Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, would each get an OCIU.

In December 1991, the four units as well as a Head Office component, became operational. The recruitment of the necessary skilled staff had been completed and the incumbents had attended the first course ever offered to detectives in the handling of undercover agents. The use of such undercover agents, their funding, as well as the funding of ‘safe houses’, motor vehicles and electronic equipment, were all matters with which the security police had been very familiar. However, the circumstances prevailing in the country towards the end of 1991 were such that it had become preferable for detectives to perform these tasks legally and in an accountable manner.30 "Before 1990 any phone tapping could take place. Now we have to get the permission of a judge", was the comment of a senior officer. Steps were therefore taken to regularise such activities and expenditures. In October 1991, the Minister of Law and Order authorised as a temporary measure, that the Organised Crime Project was to be funded out of the Special Account of the SAP. In October 1993, authority for the ongoing use of the Special Account was granted and in April 1993, the provisions of Section 3A(6) of the Secret Services Account Amendment Act, No 142 of 1992 was relied on to obtain the necessary approval.

Key to the Organised Crime Project was that each of the selected crime syndicates would be targeted for investigation by way of a specific project which was tied to a budget, time-frame and performance evaluation. The objective was to ensure, as far as possible, that the leaders of the targeted syndicates were prosecuted. The assumption was that, with the leaders behind bars, the criminal activities of the members of the syndicate would be curtailed significantly.

The first projects for the targeted investigation of organised criminal groups were registered in 1992 and some significant successes were achieved as will be seen from the first case study discussed below. The two or three years that followed — 1993, 1994 and 1995 — however, were also the years that witnessed a major expansion of organised crime. These were also the years during which the political and social transformation made a deep impact on South African society. Crime thrived during this period. Not only did the number of indigenous criminal groups expand significantly, the number of foreigners involved in organised crime activities mushroomed. Indigenous and transnational organised crime experienced a major expansion without the police being able stem this development.  

The Impact of Transition

Although different views exist on when this transition commenced in earnest, there can be little doubt that, although the former government and its structures were still firmly in place, its political authority waned significantly from the mid-1980s onwards. The pace of change accelerated after the demise of P W Botha in 1989 when F W de Klerk became President. The weakening of many state structures, including the police force, became apparent as the government relaxed its hard stance on public marches and demonstrations in 1989 and 1990. The release of Nelson Mandela and the unbanning of political organisations in 1990 accelerated the process. The pace of transition became more pronounced during the constitutional negotiations of the early 1990s at a time when political violence reached unprecedented heights. Approximately 10 000 people were killed as a result of political violence during the three years from 1990 until the end of 1993. South Africa was experiencing tumultuous times.

Among many members of the SAP there was a sense of anxiety about what was to come. Many policing resources were directed to the policing of election campaign rallies and the April 1994 election itself. Crime prevention, in general, or organised crime specifically, were not high on the agenda despite the establishment of an Organised Crime Unit.

According to a number of police officers, some projects aimed at investigating crime syndicates were registered or pursued after the election in 1994 and 1995 but, in general, police officers were waiting in anticipation of fundamental changes within the police structures which could affect their future careers. Morale was detrimentally affected. A lethargy set in which could partly be explained by the many uncertainties which police officers were experiencing, but also by the reluctance or refusal by some to accept the inevitable changes.

South Africa was not the only country which was experiencing a political and social transformation at that time. The fundamental changes which were brought about following the collapse of the communist regimes in the Soviet Union, resulted in a similar weakening in state structures in the new Russia and Central European states. Criminal groups exploited this on a massive scale.31 In a comparative study which also considered Russia, Williams notes that "[t]he political transition in South Africa, for example, has been accompanied by an upsurge of indigenous criminal organisations and the influx of groups from outside the country, as well as an increase in the problems of drug abuse and drug trafficking and associated violence. Part of the reason is that transitions are characterised by one or more of the following features: the collapse and re-establishment of state structures; major shifts in the principles underlying economic management; a redefinition of the principles and values on which society operates (e.g., who is eligible for participation in political affairs); and a re-orientation of relationships with the outside world usually involving an opening of the economy and the society."32

The newly elected government in South Africa concentrated on consolidating its political authority, on transforming state structures and on formulating new policies rather than on the effective running of the existing state structures which it had inherited. As far as the police service was concerned, the immediate focus was on transforming and legitimising the visible police service rather than enhancing its effectiveness. The transformation and enhancement of the specialised units of the police did not receive focused attention. The difficult process of amalgamating eleven existing police forces into one new South African Police Service had to be undertaken.

The political transition in South Africa therefore brought with it similar consequences as those experienced by other countries that were undergoing fundamental transitions from an authoritarian regime towards democracy. Crime, particularly indigenous and transnational organised crime, flourished. Shaw, in describing the post-election realities of organised crime in South Africa, notes that the weakening of border controls in South Africa "occurred at a time when transnational criminal operations were expanding; just like ‘legitimate’ multinational businesses, East Asian, Nigerian and East European groups bought into local South African criminal operations and expanded them, or contracted subsidiary organisations to conduct their work for them."33

Despite the increase of foreign criminal elements, South African criminal organisations have retained many distinctly South African features and characteristics. This relates to aspects such as their method of operating, their composition and the manner in which they link up with existing networks to further their goals. The case studies below illustrate the diversity of South African organised crime structures but also the common features which exist. Many are far less defined and far more dependent on intricate links with others than expected.