True-crime book probes gangs
A DURBAN author has portrayed some of the country’s notorious underworld gangsters in a true crime non-fiction book.
Frontline Legends, written by Goolam Suleman, covers the 50s, 60s and 70s when gangsters, including the notorious Msomi Gang of Alexandra Township, Alfred Wanka, Puther Hoosen Khan and others, operated.
The stories take the reader to Chicago and New York through a chapter on the notorious Al “Scarface” Capone.
Suleman said the five-year journey of research and writing the book had been worth it.
“I take the reader into actual behind-the-scenes courtroom drama with blow-by-blow cross-examination by such powerful and outstanding legal eagles as the late advocate Vernon Berrangé and our revered and esteemed first South African Chief Justice, advocate Ismail Mahomed, in his mammoth appearance
as a junior counsel.
“The 17th Street trial dossier consisted of some 2 000-odd pages, and as the writer I was faced with a daunting task of condensing this into a 220-page document without losing the gist of the actual proceedings and trial,” he said.
Suleman added: “The book is the first of its kind – a South African true crime book. It’s unique in the sense that the compilation is something totally different from what you’d get on bookshelves today.
“One of the issues that inspired me to write the book was that many narratives have been written and told about the underworld, but in Frontline Legends I attempt to explore and shed light on the characters by correcting the distorted views of many authors and writers who have written on some of the characters running in the book.
“In moving ahead, I uncover startling facts about the South African and international underworld.
“I’ve spent a lot of time in archives to obtain information. In doing so, I’ve unravelled many issues that were not completed. Gangsters back then were not like the criminals we have operating in our society today. They were ‘white-collared’ criminals.”