South Africa mafia state intensifies as contract killers target lawyers, judges and tax officials
Last month, two assassins made an appointment to see bankruptcy lawyer Bouwer van Niekerk.
After he identified himself, they shot him dead in the boardroom of his firm’s offices on a sunny morning in leafy northern Johannesburg.
Van Niekerk’s brazen murder is part of a growing trend in South Africa, a country long dogged by violent crime — the targeting of professionals instrumental in fighting corruption by hit-men.
The names of slain lawyers adorn a Wall of Remembrance that the National Prosecuting Authority erected in 2023 in the capital, Pretoria, an hour’s drive north of Van Niekerk’s office.
Some 13 insolvency practitioners, tax consultants and other professionals were assassinated in 2022 and 2023, the latest years for which data is available, research by the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime shows.
Judges, lawyers and forensic accountants who fear they could be next are having their cars armour-plated.
“In the 40 years I’ve worked in the field, I’ve felt prosecutors in this country could be safe,” Shamila Batohi, the national director of prosecutions at the NPA, told a briefing last month.
“That’s no longer the case. This is a very serious concern for the country.”
While South Africa is notorious for car hijackings, home invasions and random violence, the assassinations of those trying to combat graft illustrates just how deeply it has been infiltrated by organized crime rings.
The number of contract killings is beginning to put the country in the same basket as Mexico and Colombia.
Law-enforcement agencies rendered inept by political interference during former President Jacob Zuma’s almost nine scandal-marred years in office have made little headway in tackling the problem, despite incumbent leader Cyril Ramaphosa’s repeated pledges to institute a crackdown.
The threat faced by professionals is eroding investor confidence, imperiling his aim of firing up a stuttering economy.
Assassinations “naturally induce a reluctance to take on these high-profile, complex matters,” said Jo-Anne Mitchell Marais, the chairwoman of the South African Restructuring & Insolvency Practitioners Association, or Saripa, which represents more than 800 professionals in the field.
“There is a hesitance. Is it worth the risk?”
Justice under threat
Kurt Knoop, who was helping Van Niekerk investigate a suspected cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme, is among those who consider the danger too great.
He received a death threat and stepped away from the probe after his business partner’s murder. No one has been arrested in connection with the killing and the authorities haven’t named any suspects.
“If we lose that confidence that can have a hugely detrimental effect,” Mitchell Marais said. “There’s an impact on the banking system. If we start to see recoveries impacted, that can drive up the cost of credit.”
Other high-profile hits include a March 2023 drive-by shooting that claimed the lives of Cloete Murray and his son Thomas, both insolvency practitioners working on high-profile cases including one linked to state graft.
The prime suspect in their murder was himself shot dead in a Johannesburg hospital parking lot this month.
In April, state prosecutor Elona Sombulula was killed with a single shot to the head in the town of Ncobo in the Eastern Cape Province.
And in July, Tracy Brown, another prosecutor, died in a hail of bullets in front of her partner and child in the southern port city of Gqeberha.
The growing concern among professionals for their safety is evident at the workshop of SVI Engineering Ltd., a company that fits armor onto cars on Pretoria’s outskirts.
“If you are after corruption then you are now more likely to inquire about having your car fitted with armor plates,” said Nicol Louw, SVI’s business development director.
“Judges, they’re feeling the heat at the moment. They will tell you straight, their life has been threatened.”
The buzz of heavy machinery permeates SVI’s plant as workers don visors and weld heavy metal plates onto a van. Louw urges those at risk of being targeted to drive inconspicuous vehicles, like white Toyota Fortuners.
“If you want to keep safe, you want to blend in,” he said. “We’ve seen in the last three years, I would say between 30% and 50% year-on-year growth,” and are fitting more than 220 cars annually, he added.
Neal Froneman, who last month retired as chief executive officer of Sibanye Stillwater Ltd., South Africa’s largest employer of mineworkers, warned that companies are heavily reliant on legal professionals and investigators, who need to be able to do their work unhindered.
“If we can’t manage liquidations and insolvencies, many of us will not get involved in business,” he said.
Froneman, who is working with the government on crime issues on behalf of business lobby group B4SA, said he has raised the assassinations with senior state officials.
Saripa is also due to meet with Justice Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi to air its concerns. The government acknowledges there is a major problem.
“You can’t have a state that’s paralyzed because organized crime is threatening prosecutors,” Kubayi said at the same briefing as Batohi. “The lives of those who are fighting crime coming under threat is something new.”
Batohi said the NPA is already spending 34 million rand ($2 million) a year on protecting prosecutors. The justice minister promised further interventions in the next few months, but didn’t provide details.
‘It’s a terrifying state of affairs,” Mitchell Marais said.
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