Andre Standing i Organised crime A study from the Cape Flats BY ANDRE STANDING This publication was made possible through the generous funding of the Open Sociey Foundation i ii Contents www.issafrica.org @ 2006, Institute for Security Studies All rights reserved Copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in the Institute for Security Studies, and no part may be reproduced in whole or part without the express permission, in writing, of both the author and the publishers. The opinions expressed in this book do not necessarily reflect those of the Institute, its Trustees, members of the ISS Council, or donors. Authors contribute to ISS publications in their personal capacity. ISBN: 1-920114-09-2 First published by the Institute for Security Studies PO Box 1787, Brooklyn Square 0075 Pretoria, South Africa Cover photo: Benny Gool/Oryx Media Productions/africanpictures.net Cover: Page Arts cc Printers: Tandym Print Andre Standing iii Acknowledgements This book was commissioned by the Institute for Security Studies through a grant provided by the Open Society Foundation. I have been fortunate to work from the Cape Town office of the ISS for the past few years. The director of the ISS in Cape Town, Peter Gastrow, has been exceptionally supportive and, dare I say it, patient in waiting for the final publication. Friends and colleagues at the ISS who have helped provide a warm and stimulating work environment include Nobuntu Mtwa, Pilisa Gaushe, Charles Goredema, Annette Hubschle, Trucia Reddy, Andile Sokomani, Mpho Mashaba, Nozuko Maphazi and Hennie van Vuuren. In writing this book I have been extremely fortunate to have help and guidance from John Lea, who I owe much to over the years. In addition, I would like to thank Guy Standing, Thomas Naylor and Stephen Ellis for their comments on early drafts. Of course, the opinions, flaws and omissions are entirely mine. The book is dedicated to Sophie. iii iv Contents Andre Standing v About the author André Standing is a Senior Researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, Cape Town. Having studied and written on organised crime for the past six years, his new area of research looks at the exploitation of natural resources in Africa, with a particular focus on the impact of corruption and corporate crime. v vi Contents Andre Standing vii Contents Preface ix List of abbreviations xv CHAPTER ONE Introduction 1 CHAPTER TWO The problem: Organised crime on the Cape Flats 35 CHAPTER THREE The structure and dynamics of organised crime on the Cape Flats 95 CHAPTER FOUR Organised crime and the ‘threat to the economy’ 153 CHAPTER FIVE Criminal governance and the ‘threat to democracy’ 191 CHAPTER SIX Conclusion: The problem with the parasitic model and related policies 245 Bibliography 294 vii viii Contents Andre Standing ix Preface his is a book about gangs and organised crime on the Cape Flats. Some people Tmay be disappointed that it does not contain more stories and anecdotes. However, the aim of the book is more theoretical. It attempts to describe popular assumptions regarding these terms in South Africa and in doing so it explores contested definitions, explanations and policy debates. Before the mid 1990s, South Africa did not have a problem with organised crime. At least, it was not an issue that had been identified as being a serious threat to the country. Yet two years after the first general elections there was a steady growth in newspaper articles and academic publications all carrying the same message – since the ending of apartheid, crime had increased in South Africa and there had been a proliferation of sophisticated organised crime groups. By 2001, the then Minister for Safety and Security, the late Steve Tshwete, described how organised crime had “extended its tentacles into South Africa after the country’s return to the global arena”.1 Statistics on the scale of the threat were alarming. Some reported that the number of organised criminal groups operating in the country had risen to over 800 by 1998. One of the regions allegedly worst affected by the expansion of organised crime was the Cape Flats – a sprawling and impoverished suburb of Cape Town that was used to accommodate so-called coloured people under apartheid. Street gangs had been a longstanding feature of this area and their genesis is usually traced to the forced removal of coloured people from the city centre, which occurred throughout the 1960s and 1970s. According to most reports, during the mid-1990s these gangs went through a period of profound change, caused by new criminal opportunities provided inadvertently by the process of transition. To some, at least, the Cape Flats’ gangs went through a process of corporatisation, as is alleged to have happened to street gangs in the US during the late 1980s. The men who run these criminal organisations are well-known multi-millionaires who terrorise their communities and evade prosecution through witness intimidation and corruption. Such is the influence of these criminal groups that the authorities estimate they are responsible for as much as 70% of all crime on the Flats, a place which is infamous worldwide for being one of the most dangerous and violent city areas. Leading South African scholars argued that the rise of organised crime in the country required a specialised and concerted response by the state. This was a matter of urgency as the threat posed by organised crime was not only through ix x Organised crime: A study from the Cape Flats violence and the supply noxious goods and services, such as drugs, but also through corruption, the laundering of dirty money and the penetration of the legal economy. Such threats, it was argued, meant organised crime posed one of the major dangers to democracy in South Africa as well as to the success of the struggling economy. Indeed, it was repeatedly argued that transitional countries are most vulnerable to organised crime, as evident by rampant organised crime in Russia in the early 1990s. Heeding this warning, the South African authorities put in place far-reaching legislation and set up a series of new crime-fighting agencies. The most important development was the Prevention of Organised Crime Act, passed in 1998, which permitted courts to administer extremely harsh penalties for those found to be members of organised crime groups or criminal gangs. It also increased the penalties for those found guilty of money laundering and allowed the state to seize the assets of those involved in organised crime through civil proceedings. Not all sources are optimistic that such measures are sufficient to combat organised crime and gangs in South Africa; indeed, there is sufficient evidence that they still flourish on the Cape Flats. Nevertheless, there has been virtually unanimous agreement in South Africa on the conceptualisation of the problem. As is described in chapter two, the dominant conceptualisation of organised crime and gangs in South Africa conforms to an orthodox interpretation that has its origins in the United States. There is a tendency to depict organised crime as sinister criminal entities that exist outside mainstream society. Their genesis is located in opportunities ‘inadvertently’ created by societal progress, such as improved information technology and travel, or the temporary weakening of law enforcement efficiency. Their threat is based on the assumption that not only do they create illegal markets, but they also corrupt an otherwise healthy body politic and undermine the sanctity of the legal economy by buying up legal businesses for money laundering purposes. This view is referred to in this study as the ‘parasitic model’. Core assumptions of the parasitic model are discussed in each of the book’s main analytical chapters. In doing so, an alternative understanding is offered. Chapter three looks at the organisation of the drug economy on the Cape Flats and considers the role of the region’s street gangs, as well as the significance and nature of police corruption. Chapter four considers the impact of organised crime on the formal economy and in particular, it deals with the claim that organised crime undermines the functioning of the market economy. Chapter five deals with the relationship between leading figures in organised crime on the Cape Flats and their communities and considers the argument that organised crime threatens democracy. Chapter six draws on the preceeding chapters to critique current policy Preface xi thinking and suggests that not only is it unlikely to address the underlying harms associated with organised crime and gangs, but in many respects, it may also make matters worse. The core argument of the book is that a parasitic model is seductive for policy makers, but it is problematic when scrutinised. It is based on muddled definitions and poor empirical evidence but more importantly, it presents a remarkably apolitical interpretation. Indeed, those adhering to the parasitic model are able to discuss organised crime and gangs with little reference to the environment in which these phenomena exist – criminal groups represent social viruses and if sufficient resources are given to the ‘good guys’, society can be cured of the problem. A NOTE ON METHODS Primary data for this book has been collated largely through semi-structured interviews, although quantitative data derived from surveys is also incorporated. Such data includes a survey of business on the Cape Flats, which was designed to uncover the extent and nature of protection rackets. Chapter five describes how the survey was not entirely successful, partly because we suspect that people living and working on the Cape Flats are not willing to divulge sensitive and potentially dangerous information to strangers with clipboards. Unfortunately, the same dilemma undermines less formal interviews, even when a degree of trust seems to have been established.