Raids
Until several bail applications of underworld figures started playing out in late 2017 and early 2018, authorities had not publicly commented much about ructions within the underworld and violence unfolding as a result.
However, the actions of police and that of a task team headed by the Hawks, and which have become public knowledge, shows that they appear to be taking the matter extremely seriously.
February 7, 2018 – Controversial businessman Mark Lifman was arrested and detained at Cape Town International Airport. He faced a charge of pointing a firearm. Lifman’s attorney William Booth said his client was arrested illegally as police had not warrant to take him into custody.
However, two days after his arrest he was released from police custody after it emerged he would not be charged.
December 15, 2017 – Nafiz Modack and six others were arrested in a major crackdown by the Cape Town cluster of police.
Aside from Modack, others arrested were: Colin Booysen – who is the brother of suspected Sexy Boys gang leader Jerome “Donkie” Booysen – Jacques Cronje, James de Jager, Ashley Fields, Mathys Visser and Carl Lakay.
The seven appeared in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on December 18. Several police officers were stationed in the courtroom when they were in the dock. A man, linked to police, used his cellphone to take photographs of some of those present in the public gallery. It is understood the arrests relate to a letter distributed among club owners around Cape Town. In it the owners of establishments said they would be charged double. It is understood this was for security services.
December 7, 2017 – Mathys Visser, the head of a security company as well as a bodyguard to controversial businessman Nafiz Modack, handed himself over to the Hawks following a raid at the business’s premises the day before. A firearm, ammunition and documents were seized during the raid. Visser owned Eagle VIP Security.
The company address of Eagle VIP was listed as a property in Plattekloof – an address which News24 previously established is a home belonging to Modack.
In a related case in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court, a police investigator testified that Eagle VIP was meant to have stopped operating from March 2017 due to the non-payment of annual fees.
The investigator last week also testified that in July the name of Eagle VIP Security was changed to VIP24 Protection and its directorship changed. This company, the court had heard, may not operate as it was under investigation.
November 28, 2017 – Controversial businessman Nafiz Modack was briefly detained by police in the Cape winelands town of Worcester. He faced charges of robbery and assault relating to an apparent debt collection he tried to proceed with. A businessman apparently owed around R20m. A car was vandalised during the incident.
Charges were withdrawn against Modack on December 12.
Armed bodyguards had been present when he had gone to the Worcester Magistrate’s Court, where the charges were withdrawn.
November 25, 2017 – Two brothers were arrested in conne
ction with the murder of international “Steroid King” Brian Wainstein. Wainstein was killed shortly after midnight on August 18 in what appeared to be a targeted hit at his home.
Three days after brothers Matthew and Sheldon Breet were arrested, Hawks investigators discovered explosives, two military radios and a firearm in search operations held in Cape Town’s northern suburbs and linked to the duo.
In October Fabian Cupido, 39, was also arrested in connection with Wainstein’s murder. This was after he was detained following an alleged attempted attack at a Cape Town hospital where alleged Sexy Boys gang leader Jerome “Donkie” Booysen was admitted after he was wounded in a shooting at Cape Town International Airport.
November 13, 2017 – Police officers searched a vehicle used by controversial businessman Nafiz Modack, as well as other men, outside the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court following the appearance of Grant Veroni, of the company Skhosana Maponyane Hall Phillips and Khumalo, trading as The Security Group (TSG), who was arrested on November 11. Veroni, who was also arrested in September, faces an illegal possession of a firearm charge in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court.
October 27, 2017 – An intense underworld tracing operation led to the arrests of two more suspects for a shooting in Café Caprice in Camps Bay. Two patrons were wounded in this incident which unfolded on April 17. These latest arrests brought to six the total number of suspects detained in connection with this incident.
October 24, 2017 – A fourth suspect appeared in court for a shooting which unfolded at a Camps Bay establishment in April, an incident linked to the underworld nightclub security industry. Two patrons were shot in Café Caprice in this incident.
October 9, 2017 – Hussain Ait Taleb, a martial arts expert better known in bouncer circles as Hussain Moroccan, was arrested in connection with a murder conspiracy charge. Taleb has been involved in nightclub security for decades and at one point worked with now-slain underworld kingpin Cyril Beeka, who ran an infamous bouncer racket in Cape Town.
October 9, 2017 – The Hawks confirmed a third suspect was arrested for a shooting in Café Caprice in Camps Bay in which two patrons were wounded on April 17.
October 5, 2017 – Two suspects were arrested – one for a shooting in Café Caprice in Camps Bay in which two patrons were wounded on April 17. The second was arrested for a shooting which happened just outside Coco Bar in the city centre on May 5. A patron and DJ were wounded in this incident.
October 2, 2017 – Jordan Fabe appeared in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court. He was arrested on September 29 in connection with the wounding of two men in Café Caprice in Camps Bay on April 17.
September 29, 2017 – Grant Veroni and Vincent Phillips, who work at the Bellville-based security company Skhosana Maponyane Hall Phillips and Khumalo, trading as The Security Group (TSG), which was twice before the target of police and Hawks operations, were arrested. Veroni and Phillips were arrested on charges, including fraud and others, under the Firearms Control Act.
September 8, 2017 – Police raided controversial businessman and ex-bouncer boss Andre Naude’s Bellville home around 03:30. Items seized, according to a document seen by News24, included a desktop computer, several laptops, and a memory stick. However, Naude, who was not in the country at the time, said no illegal items or substances were found in his home. A search warrant, seen by News24, shows that various crimes, including having illegal firearms and money laundering, were suspected of being committed.
August 31, 2017 – Naeem Harris, 21, of Portlands, Mitchells Plain, was arrested for a shooting which happened just outside Coco nightclub in the Cape Town city on May 5, 2017. A patron and a DJ were wounded in this incident.
August 21, 2017 – A suspect, Matthew Broderick Breet, 27, was arrested for allegedly being in possession of prohibited firearms and ammunition. This after an operation, involving Crime Intelligence and Hawks, was conducted outside a fast food outlet in Sea Point in April.
News24 understands that a group of men had gathered there and were planning to intimidate club owners in the city centre and surrounds. Officers had discovered an abandoned Jeep without registration plates outside the fast food outlet. In the vehicle they discovered items including a shotgun, blue light and bullet proof jacket. Investigations into this matter had led to Breet’s arrest.
July 14, 2017 – Businessman Nafiz Modack, said to be heading up the newer grouping taking over club security, said his home in Plattekloof was burgled by police officers who stole cash and got into a safe and stole “sensitive classified documents” containing the names of police generals. However, police said an operation was conducted there.
July 12, 2017 – A security company, The Security Group, based in Bellville, was for the second time in less than two weeks the centre of an operation conducted by a task team consisting of Hawks officers, police, private security regulators, and liquor, firearms and second hand goods authorities. Firearms were confiscated. This clampdown happened less than three months after News24 reported that The Security Group had made claims on its website that it had strong links to intelligence services, claims which the State Security Agency denied. The Security Group approached the Western Cape High Court to get the guns returned, but were unsuccessful. A Hawks investigator, in court papers, claimed The Security Group made use of the names of registered guards to get firearm licences, but that the guards had never worked for the company.
July 6, 2017 – A multidisciplinary team, consisting of Hawks officers, national intervention unit members, liquor officials and others linked to the regulation of private security, arrested two bouncers at a Bellville venue for non-compliance with private security regulations.
July 4, 2017 – The Security Group was the centre of an operation conducted by a task team including Hawks officers, police, private security regulators, and liquor, firearms and second hand goods authorities. National intervention unit members, according to sources with intimate knowledge of what happened, had monitored the operation to ensure those conducting it were safe. The operation, a compliance inspection, had focused on whether the company was compliant with various regulations. No arrests were made and nothing was confiscated. According to the sources, at least two key underworld figures had arrived during the operation.
June 29, 2017 – Three bouncers were arrested at an establishment in Table View for allegedly not being registered with the necessary private security regulatory body as is required by law.
June 27, 2017 – Two bouncers were arrested during a night raid and Long Street clampdown in the Cape Town city centre. It was conducted by a multidisciplinary task team, including members of the national intervention unit from Gauteng and the Hawks. They are facing charges of not being registered with the necessary private security authority.
May 29, 2017 – Alleged Sexy Boys gang leader Jerome “Donkie” Booysen’s home in the southern suburbs was raided. Police used a nyala to break their way into it.
Officers armed with automatic rifles then squeezed passed it to get inside. The officers’ faces were partially covered, with only their eyes and the bridges of their noses showing beneath helmets. All were dressed in what appeared to be combat gear, and one of them carried a shield. Exclusive CCTV footage obtained by News24 shows that the police raid happened at 03:04. Booysen has said he is not sure why his home was targeted. He was intent on pushing ahead with a civil claim against the police. Booysen said officers traumatised his daughters and grandchildren by pointing machine guns at them. “It was me and my daughters. Why did they have to come with machine guns?” he asked when talking to News24.
May 26, 2017 – Armed police officers, from various branches including the special task force and national intervention unit from Johannesburg, clamped down on popular Long Street in the city centre, combing through clubs and effectively blocking off the area, in a crackdown on the intensifying underworld battle for control over the lucrative bouncer industry. Helicopters were also used in the massive operation. Police were authorised to search any person and any premises for firearms and explosives, without search warrants.
The operation had also, according to sources, included public order police officers, units from Stellenbosch and Johannesburg, Hawks officers and border control police officers. News24 has seen a copy of the authorisation for the operation, signed by the Western Cape police commissioner. It allowed for police to cordon off several streets, including Long Street, from that specific Friday evening until the Saturday morning. It also allowed for officers to “without a warrant search persons, premises, vehicles, receptacles or objects of whatsoever nature, in order to seize illegal firearms, ammunition and explosives and any object referred to in section 20 of the Criminal Procedure Act”.