Introduction

Organised crime in South Africa is a little-understood phenomenon. Public attention has been focused on other, more visible areas of criminality, and the South African Police Service (SAPS) has only recently begun to counter the problem of crime syndicates. Yet current evidence suggests that organised crime has not only grown in scope worldwide, but has also changed significantly during the past decade.

Sources in the SAPS suggest that state law enforcement institutions do not yet have the resources or technical expertise to cope with organised crime. Given that organised crime was never a priority under apartheid rule indeed, there is evidence that syndicates and gangs were used to `police' the opponents of the state it is difficult to measure its growth.

However, current (although tentative) estimates indicate that organised crime has doubled under the new government. According to the SAPS, there are currently about 500 `extremely well-financed and superbly armed' crime syndicates operating in and from South Africa. Almost half these operations are based in and around Johannesburg.

While varying in form and structure, organised crime operations in South Africa share a number of common characteristics: a hierarchy of control, with clearly designated ranks and systems of promotion and payment; sophisticated procedures, often via legitimate business interests, to launder money obtained by means of illegal activities; and the use of weapons to ensure that `business' routes are protected and potential competitors eliminated.1

A world of crime?

Historically, organised crime has been regarded as a law and order problem confined to single states or cities often those with high immigrant populations; certain geographic areas such as southern Italy and Sicily and cities such as Boston or Hong Kong contain strains of organised criminality dating back at least a century or more.

However, as the world order has changed over the past decade, so too has the nature of organised crime. Not only has organised crime expanded its areas of interest to become a transnational phenomenon; it has also changed the nature of its operations.

The `crisis of governance' in state systems means that state boundaries no longer inhibit the growth of criminal networks to the extent that they did previously. Moreover, the collapse or weakening of some states and the emergence of new ones have created an environment in which criminal organisations can operate in parallel to existing business and government institutions.

Comparative evidence suggests that organised crime grows most quickly in periods of political transition and violence, when state resources are concentrated in certain areas only and gaps emerge in which crime syndicates may operate. The most notable example is the former Soviet Union: the collapse of communist rule allowed the emergence of literally thousands of criminal organisations involving current and former members of the establishment2. This has at least some parallels to South Africa.

But the formation of new states, the breakdown of old ones and the establishment of competing centres of power is hardly a new phenomenon. The growth of the earliest recorded forms of organised crime in Sicily more than a century ago was the result of weak government, and strong ethnic and family linkages. Even when stronger forms of governance were exerted from the Italian mainland in the 19th century, and again in the 1980s, organised crime proved to be remarkably adaptive, altering its operations and forging new linkages to ensure continued profits.3

But in South Africa's case, other factors have also been at play. Senior SAPS officers point out that when apartheid ended, border controls were weakened, thus creating new potential areas of operation for organised crime This occurred at a time when transnational criminal operations were expanding; just like `legitimate' multinational businesses, they bought into local operations and expanded them, or contracted subsidiary organisations to conduct their work for them.

Stricter controls at points of entry into North America and most European states, southern Africa's favourable position on the drug trafficking routes between the Far and Middle East, the Americas and Europe, and its accessibility via land, sea and air make it a lucrative area for illegal business. Another important factor is that South Africa has a seemingly insatiable demand for illegal goods, ranging from drugs to firearms, vehicles, counterfeit money, and products derived from endangered species.4

Live and let live

One common denominator of organised crime operations is the ability to penetrate and use the institutions of the state. In countries such as Colombia and Russia it is often difficult to tell where the state ends and organised crime begins. Good state contacts enable operations to run more smoothly, while forewarning crime bosses of any impending government crack-down.

There is a paradox here. Organised crime operates best in the context of a corrupted state and organised business sector not one that has completely broken down. The existence of a relatively strong but penetrated state allows organised crime the luxury of using state institutions for profit, remaining relatively free from prosecution while continuing to operate in a comparatively stable environment. Failed states mean higher costs for organised crime: without state `assistance' and infrastructure, there are greater costs involved in securing crime fiefdoms, which come closer to `warlordism' than organised crime operations.

The increased sophistication and growth of organised crime also partly results from the communications revolution. New communications technology has opened up new areas of criminality in the commercial world, as well as new opportunities for laundering money or investing profits from illicit activities. In the process, the distinction between the legal and illegal sectors of any economy has been blurred further by the growing propensity to invest profits from criminal activities in legal businesses. The most `respectable' (and powerful) organised crime operations are often a dynamic mix between licit and illicit activities.

Into the loop?

Some evidence suggests that organised crime operations co-operate more closely on an international level than law enforcement agencies previously believed. The Russian and Sicilian Mafia have co-operated with each other and their counterparts elsewhere, while Colombian cartels have sought Asian and European connections to secure local markets. This has prompted some observers to suggest that the new global order is dominated by a `network of organised crime' which seeks, in increasingly co-operative relationships, to divide up and dominate the markets for illicit goods.5

This is far-fetched. Such relationships bring as many dangers as they do advantages criminal operations only seek allies when this is profitable, and seldom simply to dominate a region or area. Such agreements are also notoriously fickle, and are often broken if this suits one of the parties, or they are threatened by the actions of a third party.6 Also, promoting competition between criminal organisations is increasingly regarded as a way of policing crime syndicates; this allows smaller operations to challenge more established ones, thereby keeping the system unbalanced.

Contrary to the view commonly conveyed in the media, increased violence perpetrated by organised crime networks seldom means that they are trying to increase their spheres of influence; they are generally attempts to ward off encroaching players, preventing them from upsetting an established equilibrium.

Such connections often bring new players into the arena. Nigerian and Turkish organisations that began as carriers for larger criminal operations have begun to establish their own networks specialising in certain products; Nigerian and Turkish syndicates are now heavily involved in heroin trafficking. Indeed, increased trafficking in drugs including cocaine by Nigerian organisations has led to new forms of drug dependency in southern Africa.

Strength and diversity?

Given the available evidence, South African crime syndicates do not appear to have reached this stage of development. Currently, organised crime locally is not dominated by any one group, although there is some evidence that certain local operations have forged links with overseas partners.

What is of increasing concern in southern Africa is the degree to which organised crime operations have been able to penetrate the state. Crime syndicates that are well-resourced have the ability to `buy into' government, and bribe officials including those in law enforcement who earn comparatively little. While it is well known that bribery occurs in the lower ranks of the SAPS, the degree to which this phenomenon has penetrated the higher echelons of the service is unclear.

Most local organised crime operations concentrate on southern Africa, dealing in a wide variety of commodities and engaging in a number of illegal activities. These include a lucrative trade in drugs, gold and diamond smuggling, vehicle theft, commercial crime, and arms smuggling. Significantly, the activities of the various organised crime networks are often closely linked. For example, in southern Africa, vehicle theft and robbery are linked to the illegal arms trade in Mozambique, while drug trafficking is connected with motor vehicle theft and to money laundering in Zambia.

South African crime syndicates are also closely tied into international organisations, and in particular those from the Far East, engaged in the illegal traffic of environmental contraband such as ivory and rhino horn. Here, the historic link between the state and organised crime is at its clearest.

The involvement of the South African security establishment "either by direct involvement in poaching, or by allowing the conduits of contraband ivory and rhino horn to double as intelligence routes from neighbouring states" has been established.7

Drug trafficking in particular provides the resources on which other forms of illegal activity can be built. Mozambique has emerged as a major transit centre for heroin, cocaine, hashish and Mandrax being smuggled into the southern Africa region, as well as for drugs destined for the northern hemisphere. Given the end of the civil war there and the South African supply of weapons to one of the protagonists Mozambique has become the region's main source of illegal firearms. There is a ready market for these weapons among other crime syndicates and criminal gangs operating in South Africa and elsewhere in southern Africa.

The threat of drug operations to South Africa can be contextualised by examining Brazil, a country with a similar socio-economic profile. Brazil "is playing an increasingly important role as a transshipment state, and has developed an extensive drug consumption problem of its own in the [slums] of Rio de Janeiro". This has led to increased levels of violence in the marginalised areas of the city, higher levels of petty crime, and increased corruption of state officials by transnational crime operations, since for these officials for whom "the alternative may be violence or death, the temptation to accept corruption as a way of life is profound".8

Policing profitability

The diversity of organised crime operations in South Africa may contain both advantages and drawbacks for policing. Monitoring two or three large organisations in any area may be easier than watching hundreds. At the same time, though, a diversity of competing organisations provides some opportunities for more sophisticated forms of control, exploiting divisions and fostering competition between syndicates.

Central to any policing strategy should be an attempt to prevent the consolidation of organised crime operations. Once firmly established, organised crime organisations are immensely difficult to eradicate. Indeed, in some respects, South Africa may have already entered a stage where this is no longer possible.

Importantly also, organised crime retains the potential to recruit and formalise relationships with lower-level street operations such as gangs, using them as foot soldiers and carriers in increasingly sophisticated operations or buying into already established ones. Areas such as the Western Cape, with its long tradition of gang formation, are ripe for such developments.

Policing organised crime requires new methods and greater co-operation with international law enforcement agencies. Targeting individuals particularly at lower or middle level often does little to break up organisations, or leads to violent struggles for control within syndicates.

If ordinary police work will have limited results, the best way to police organised crime is to threaten profit margins by limiting what syndicate bosses can do with money obtained from illegal activities.

Tighter money laundering legislation which the South African government is under increasing pressure to implement, and which will probably be on the statute book by mid-1996 is one way to do this. Such legislation is essential, not only to police the activities of organised crime but to prevent crime bosses from investing in legitimate businesses.

The Law Commission has produced draft legislation on, among other things, the confiscation of the proceeds of crime. It contains the following broad principles:

• that the courts should be empowered, on conviction of the offender, to confiscate the proceeds of his/her crime;
  
  

• the amount confiscated should be aimed at the value of the proceeds of the crime, and not any actual property which may lawfully belong to another party;
  
  

• the value of the property should not be limited by the type of offence from which the proceeds are derived;
  
  

• any order of confiscation be accompanied by a restraining order preventing the offender from effectively giving away accumulated assets to others; and
  
  

• the confiscation of property should be imposed in addition to any other sentence.

But an adequate policing policy will involve more than just the agencies of law enforcement it will also draw in business. Banks will in future be forced to re-examine the concept of confidential client relationships. And the legal and accountancy professions, as well as estate agents and travel agencies, may be forced to rethink some of their principles of operation in line with organised crime prevention trends elsewhere.9

Understanding organised crime

Much research work still needs to be done on organised crime in South Africa. While detailed work is available on the operations of organised crime operations in Europe and North America, there is little literature either on South African syndicates or on organised crime in Africa as a whole.10

To begin to police the problem innovatively it will be essential to better understand the growth of organised crime networks. Comparative research of the growth in organised crime elsewhere provides guidelines to four broad areas that need to be explored:

• The changing commodities that organised crime networks trade in and potential new commodities they may seek to obtain. The introduction of drugs such as `crack' into the South African market suggests that street level syndicate operations may change over time to accommodate changing market conditions.
  
  

• The dynamic connections between various syndicates and street-level organisations, and their linkages to the state and external criminal operations in turn, are an important measure of the maturation of organised crime in the country. A solidifying of operations, the targeted penetration of the state apparatus and the emergence of a number of prominent figures will all signal growth stages in the development of organised crime operations in the country.
  
  

• The reaction of organised crime syndicates to policing should be a key area of concern. Crime operations may change their shape and structure in reaction to some forms of policing, or may specifically target police agencies either to be corrupted or for violent retribution.
  
  

• Violence which can be linked to organised crime operations should be carefully monitored to assess the stages of development exhibited by crime syndicates. Ironically, periods of comparative peace may signal the growth and consolidation of organised crime rather than its demise.

Note: Interviews conducted in the course of researching this article have not been cited. It is an early overview of research on organised crime in South Africa.

Notes and references

For a detailed overview of definitions of organised crime, see G E Caiden and H E Alexander, `Introduction: Perspectives on Organised Crime', in Alexander and Caiden (eds), The Politics and Economies of Organised Crime, Washington, Lexington Books, 1985.



Among a burgeoning literature on the Russian Mafia, see J Sherr, `Russia, Geopolitics and Crime', Conflict Studies Research Centre, F49, February 1995.



A Stille, Excellent Cadavers: The Mafia and the death of the First Italian Republic, London, Jonathan Cape, 1995.



W Grove, `A perspective on organised crime in South Africa', South African Police Service, paper presented to 1995 Organised Crime Conference, Bramshill, 2224 May 1995.



C Sterling, Thieve's world: the threat of the new global network of organised crime, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1994.



P Williams, `Transnational criminal organisations and international security', Survival 36, Spring 1994.



D W Potgieter, Contraband: South Africa and the international trade in ivory and rhino horn, Cape Town, Queillerie, 1995.



International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS), Strategic policy issues: transnational crime, yearbook, 1994/95.



See The Sunday Independent, 10/12/1995.



A notable if dated exception is J Opolot, Organised Crime in Africa, Pilgrimage, Jonesboro, 1981.