Dirty business as usual for CT hoods
Bail hearing no bar to extortion racket as heavies do the rounds
● While cleaners tidied up after New Year’s parties, another set of “cleaners” arrived to collect the R1 800 monthly “management fee” for Cape Town’s largest extortion racket.
It was allegedly business as usual for Matthys Visser and James de Jager as they walked into Long Street nightclubs to collect cash on Tuesday — apart from the fact that they were out on bail.
At the same time as they made their rounds, the men said to be their bosses were being confronted with a mountain of allegations during their own bail hearing in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court nearby.
Since the arrest on extortion charges of Visser, De Jager, Nafiz Modack, Colin Booysen, Ashley Fields, Jacques Cronje and Carl Lakay on December 15, police have described their alleged protection racket’s virtual “takeover” of Cape Town.
With the Hawks and the South African Revenue Service hot on the heels of virtually all of Cape Town’s top underworld figures, the bail hearing sets the stage for what is likely to be South Africa’s biggest organised crime trial. The case is said to implicate senior police officers, high-profile lawyers and businessmen associated with the underworld.
During testimony aimed at persuading magistrate Joe Magele to deny the men bail, Sea Point detectives head Colonel Charl Kinnear said Modack was working with convicted Czech fugitive Radovan Krejcir.
He testified that the men were a “threat to society” and would interfere with witnesses if they were freed.
Christmas and New Year passed with remarkably few crimes reported in the Cape Town city centre. An undercover policeman from the Operation Combat anti-gang unit said this was in no small part due to the detention of the group.
But in court on Wednesday, Kinnear said he had a fresh R1 800 invoice sent to a nightclub by TSG, a “security company” where Lakay is an employee.
Visser is reported to be Modack’s bodyguard and Kinnear testified that he and De Jager were also involved in extorting money from clubs until they were arrested.
Visser and De Jager were freed on bail on December 27 and the Sunday Times has learnt that they allegedly went to collect money from establishments in Cape Town this week on behalf of the alleged racket.
The City of Cape Town mayoral committee member for safety and security, JP Smith, said he was not surprised to hear this.
Various law-enforcement agencies, including the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, had worked together to “muzzle” the group’s activities, he said — making for quieter streets in Cape Town in the past month.
Nightclub owners told the Sunday Times they were not only paying a “management fee” to TSG security, but that Modack and Booysen’s rival grouping — headed by businessman Mark Lifman, alleged Sexy Boys gang boss and Booysen’s brother/nemesis
Even if you lock up one of the bosses . . this is a many-headed Hydra. We have to keep on hacking off more heads JP Smith City of Cape Town mayoral committee member for safety and security
Jerome “Donkie” Booysen and bouncer André Naudé — have told them TSG “no longer operates in Cape Town” and they will have to pay to them instead.
Naudé denied the claims, saying he no longer owned any bouncer companies. But he said clubs “should have the freedom to choose” with whom they do business.
Kinnear’s evidence in the bail application included the claim that Cape Town advocate Pete Mihalik was involved in the racket. He is alleged to have facilitated meetings in his office with extortion targets and negotiated “management fees”.
The Hawks and SARS are investigating several individuals, especially the heavily indebted Modack, who is said to owe R4.9-million to financial institutions for his Plattekloof house and cars.
Mihalik has been absent from the bail hearing since Kinnear started testifying on December 28. His partner Bruce Hendricks said they “were working on it” when asked about the allegations and Mihalik’s absence.
In a WhatsApp to the Sunday Times, Mihalik said “Kinnear wears cheap shoes and is as fake as his Rolex” and that the prosecutor in the case, Adiel Jansen, “is so insignificant, Home Affairs refused to issue him with an ID card”.
Security analyst Mike Bolhuis said extortion did not end with the monthly fee. Club owners were then “milked” by being forced to use suppliers connected to the racket.
“There is a lot of money in alcohol, a 3 000% mark-up in drugs, they provide the vegetables [to restaurants], cutlery, upholstery, you name it,” he said.
The men are expected to appear in court again on Thursday.