Hitmen assassinate at least two people every week in South Africa

An assassination occurs every week in South Africa, as criminal syndicates continue to gain ground, wreaking havoc across the public and private sectors and communities.

According to a Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime (GI-TOC) report titled The Business of Killing – Assassinations in SA, South Africa recorded at least 141 assassinations by paid hitmen in 2022, an average of more than two a week.

The report notes, however, that these 141 contract killings are likely just a fraction of the actual incidents, due to limited police data available.

The inability of police to properly investigate and bring killers to book, coupled with a weak crime intelligence exacerbates the problem.

No dedicated database

Despite the increasing assassinations, law enforcement doesn’t have a dedicated database on this type of killing, which has since given rise to a demand for hitmen.

“Targeted killings are instead grouped under the umbrella category of murder in the police’s annual crime reports and there is still no consistent collection of data on the topic.

“Given this lack of disaggregated data pertaining to targeted killings, the GI-TOC has developed a database quantifying and categorising assassinations, which records cases since 2000,” reads the report.

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GI-TOC says taxi industry-related killings constitute most of the cases, at 46% of cases over the 22-year period, followed by organised crime and politically-linked cases, at 26% and 21% respectively.

Assassinations between warring taxi bosses have been on the increase since 2015 and surged in 2018, while political killings increased but dipped in 2020 but have since ticked up again.

“These are worrying trends, which are most likely to continue if the failure to conduct investigations
into specific clusters of killings carries on, and if steps are not taken to address the underlying drivers of targeted killings – namely, the proliferation of illegal firearms and the recruitment pools of hitmen being created in the largely unregulated taxi industries of KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape, the Western Cape, and gangs in the latter province.”

New targets

The report notes that there has been an increase in targeted killings in sectors of society where they have not normally been recorded before, such as the music industry, higher education, and community activists such as the targeting of leaders of Abahlali baseMjondolo.

To date, 24 members of Abahlali baseMjondolo have been assassinated since the formation of the non-government organisation in 2005.

Popular rapper Kiernan Forbes, known as AKA, was targeted and killed outside a restaurant in Durban in February, along with a longtime friend Tebello ‘Tibz’ Motsoane. The killers are yet to be arrested and charged.

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Corrupt syndicates have seemingly also infiltrated universities and colleges, with a recent hit directed at University of Fort Hare Vice-Chancellor Professor Sakhela Buhlungu claiming the life of his bodyguard instead.

The historical institution was milked by syndicates who often collaborated with staffers. Prior to the arrival of Buhlungu in 2016, resources were pillaged, bringing the university to a state of near collapse.

Organised crime

According to the report, organised crime hits are often difficult to resolve because victims are targeted for various reasons.

In addition to turf wars, motives include internal gang disputes over power, revenge killings
or suspicions of colluding with law enforcement.

As much as the Western Cape is known for its gang ecosystem, gangsterism is on the increase in other provinces such as Gauteng.

The Eastern Cape showed a steady trend, with seven cases in 2020, six in 2021 and six more in 2022.

“Gauteng cases are relatively steady but on the increase, with four cases recorded in 2020, six in 2021 and six in 2022.

“Cases in Gauteng are anticipated to remain on this trajectory because of increasing gang activity in the province and a rise in reports of vigilante groups who target individuals in the criminal underworld within the province.”

SAPS unit on political killings

Police spokesperson Brigadier Athlenda Mathe said all murders, including assassinations, are handled by the SA Police Service (SAPS) organised crime unit.

With political and taxi-related killings dominating the paid hit crimes, a task team was established to deal with politically-linked murders in KwaZulu-Natal in 2018.

“We have an organised crime unit that also deals with the killings as well. Furthermore, we have a task team that deals with political assassinations based largely in KwaZulu-Natal.

“Those members are deployed to other provinces to help with murder investigations whenever the need arises. Organised crime and the Hawks tackle those cases,” she said.

Mathe didn’t readily have data on the arrested hitmen in the previous year.

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