Gangs tighten grip on SA

PROBE: HIGH-LEVEL POLICE INVESTIGATION UNDER WAY

Victims include big, small businesses, tenderpreneurs – and even recyclers.

Mob-style crime is increasingly tightening its grip on communities, with experts warning that the extortion gang “Boko Haram” – currently under high-level police investigation for its alleged reign of terror in Mamelodi, Tshwane – was a sign of a growing problem.

Police Minister Bheki Cele last week confirmed that a team had been assembled to probe activities of the marauding gang of thugs alleged to have residents under siege through violence, extortion and demanding cuts from tenders and business deals.

The gang allegedly collects protection fees from local businesses, big or small, as well as from ordinary people, including recycle material collectors.

According to former policeman Dawie Naude, the past five years has seen a proliferation of extortion gangs across the country, saying it has become a huge problem in townships and informal settlements.

He said there were gangs specialising in extorting money from big establishments, including construction sites and shopping malls in townships, while others targeted small business, with people running stalls by the side of road not spared.

“For big business, you pay so that you can operate peacefully with no robberies or break-ins. If you do not pay, they ensure that you close down through violence.

“For those by the side of the road selling pap, fruit and so on, if you do not pay you get killed. It is that simple,” Naude, now a specialist private investigator at Sleuth Investigative Services, a Joburg detective agency, said.

The township is not new to alleged extortion gangs, with taxi boss Vusi “Khekhe” Mathibela – dubbed “Number One Tsotsi” by Cele, accused of running a similar extortion ring before his arrest for the murder of North West businessman Wandile Bozwana.

Bozwana was gunned down five years ago on the N1 highway, when gunmen opened fire on the car he was travelling in with his partner.

Risk expert, Kyle Condon, said police lacked manpower, resources, intelligence and investigative skills to deal with the problem.

His biggest concern was that extortion was attractive in that if a 40 people are able to extort money from big businesses, nothing stops other people from gathering their friends and do the same. –

You pay so you can operate with no break-ins

A pub that closed its doors during lockdown is now serving a menagerie of very different clientele after transforming into Ireland’s first wildlife hospital.

The bar of the Tara Na Ri pub in County Meath to the northwest of Dublin is now deserted, the blinds pulled down, the Guinness taps dry and the till empty.

But the pub’s outbuildings are a hive of activity.

In one, a member of staff bottle-feeds Liam, a two-week-old wild Irish goat who was found on a mountainside. Three swans nest on straw in former stables, a skittish fox settles in a new enclosure, and a wide-eyed buzzard is being nursed back to health.

“We were very much accustomed to just one singular way of living,” said James McCarthy, whose family have owned the pub for more than a decade.

“When that’s taken away you’re just kind of left with a void. It takes some time before it starts getting replaced with other things that you never would have thought were possible before.”

McCarthy has turned the outbuildings over to the government-backed agency Wildlife Rehabilitation Ireland (WRI) and instead of pulling pints, now serves drive-through customers with takeaway coffees at the front of the pub.

The WRI facility, which opened on Friday, is the first animal hospital in Ireland capable of caring for animals of any species, size or medical needs. “We’re bracing ourselves for ‘orphan season’ which is our busiest time of year,” said animal manager Dan Donoher, calming a flustered pigeon on an examination table.

“We’ll get lots of baby birds, baby foxes, etc, and they’ll keep us busy for the next six months.”

Pubs play a vital role in Irish society, especially in remote rural areas, and the closure of the Tara Na Ri was a heavy blow for the community. The inn stands near a hill called the Tara with ancient burial mounds. Its name means Tara of the Kings. –