Court told how group extorted money from restaurant
DETAILS of how alleged underworld kingpin Colin Booysen supposedly extorted money from a business were laid bare in the Cape Town Regional court, where he is appearing with three other suspects.
Booysen, Nafiz Modack, Ashley Fields and Jacques Cronje are on trial for money laundering and extortion linked to a violent takeover of the nightclub security industry in the Cape. A fifth accused, Carl Lakay, was murdered in his driveway in Goodwood in August.
The group was nabbed in December last year for allegedly trying to extort R369 000 from The Grand Africa Café and Beach near the V&A Waterfront. That amount has now been reduced to R90 000.
Yesterday, The Grand’s brand manager, Radley Dijkers, testified how the group allegedly tried to extort R150 000 from the restaurant in November last year, just before their signature summer party event.
“It was myself and operations manager Stuart Bailey, Modack, Fields, Cronje, Booysen and Lakay in the upstairs office. Booysen started the conversation, stating we needed to discuss the extra security cost his associate Modack had. Booysen said he doesn’t normally come to meetings like this. Then he told me: ‘Don’t pay us peanuts, we’re not monkeys’. “Modack said he needed to bring in 80 (security) guards for an event of this size and he needed to pay them R2 000 each and they needed it to be paid. Bailey and I explained to him we only had R50 000 to offer.
“After Booysen’s statement about peanuts, I told Bailey we must increase their monthly security fee from R70 000 to R100 000.”
Asked by the magistrate why he would volunteer to pay more, Dijkers replied: “I wanted to make the gentlemen in front of me happy.”
Dijkers said they argued about the money, with Modack demanding R100 000 on that day, but it was Booysen who eventually “met us halfway”.
“Bailey said we could not do R100 000, but R80 000. It was Booysen who then said why not meet halfway and make it R90 000. I said I would need until midnight to get the monies. After the meeting, Lakay stated he would get the cash that evening.”
The case continues.