Image for illustrative purposes. Picture: iStock
In a nation with more muscle than opportunity, the heavies prey on the producers.
Extortion rackets have evolved from covert bullying enforced through violence, implied or explicit, into open-air conflict akin to literal daylight robbery.
Tshwane’s latest high-profile extortion gang has even taken the name of a terror organisation as a tribute to extremist tactics.
The Mamelodi gang calling themselves ‘Boko Haram’ were reported by News24 as having targeted all forms of businesses, from mechanics and hairdressers to petrol stations and spaza shops.
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The larger the business enterprise, the larger the ‘protection fee’, but police insisted the sphere of influence was confined to South Africa’s borders.
“We cannot confirm that the gang has any link with any gangs in Nigeria or any other country,” Gauteng police spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Mavela Masondo told The Citizen.
Founded in the early 2000s, the Boko Haram designated as a terror organisation by the US State Department gained infamy in 2014 when they kidnapped 276 schoolgirls in a northern Nigerian territory.
Reports of extortion rackets have become more prevalent in recent years after being limited in the northern provinces to arguments about SMME opportunities.
The Eastern Cape was rocked by a surge in extortion tactics while the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime (GI-TOC) have conducted a study into the prevalence of extortion in Cape Town.
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GI-TOC noted the nightlife extortion rackets in the Cape Town CBD were now entrenched, having been in operation for well over two decades.
The study noted how tactics refined in this sphere had been used to replicate scenarios in the construction and transport industries, as well as the township economy.
“Methods developed in the cape are also exported throughout South Africa as individuals move between provinces,” GI-TOC’s report stated.
“The result is a criminal web of extortion, in which actors learn from each other and move freely between operations,” it added.
GI-TOC’s initial study was published in April 2024, but Cape Town’s municipality had already launched an anti-extortion campaign in 2023.
However, policing the intimidation is difficult as the police definition of extortion involves “intentionally and unlawfully subjecting [a] person to pressure”.
“The offence is not defined in South African legislation, but a common law description has developed through historical legal influences,” the GI-TOC report explained further.
That said, police have been making positive strides as criminals become more brazen, with police reporting over 700 extortion-related arrests in recent months.
“If a member of the public is subjected to intimidation or extortion by the so-called Boko Haram or by anyone for that matter, should open a criminal case at the nearest police station,” concluded Lieutenant Colonel Masondo.
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