Trackers (11 page)
Authors: Deon Meyer
'Where do we find these people?' But then Mentz frowned. 'If
only we had someone inside, Tau, we could have had three of our best teams
waiting there for Osman.'
Masilo merely nodded, having little stomach for this
argument. Then he changed the subject. 'We know who is supposed to buy Johnson
Chitepo's shipment of diamonds.'
It took Mentz a moment to make the leap. 'Oh?'
'The role allocations in this drama keep getting more
interesting. Inkunzi Shabangu called the Committee this weekend with the news.
The latest supporting player is apparently one Mr Willem
"Tweetybird" de la Cruz, gang leader on the Cape Flats.'
'You're not serious.'
'Come on, Mac, we have work to do,' Mrs Killian said just
after ten, and rolled her chair up to Milla's desk. She waited for MacFarland
to ride his chair closer before she sat down and put the fat files down on the
desktop.
'Milla, this is your first big one, and we must have
something ready by tomorrow morning,' she said. 'But don't worry, Mac will be
your safety net...'
Mrs Killian handed the first file to Milla.
'Criminal gangs in the Cape Flats. There is a lot of material
here, the challenge is to reduce it to three or four pages. One on the background,
but focus on the last decade, the rest is really irrelevant. And one on the
current state of affairs, again just broad strokes, a brief overview. Remember,
we want the top management to be informed, but we don't want to waste their
time. And then one page on a particular syndicate: the Restless Ravens. Not
more than a paragraph or two on their history, keep the focus on how they look
now, what they are involved in. Which brings me to you, Mac. You will be
looking at a Mr Willem de la Cruz, also known as "Tweetybird" or
"Willy" ...'
'My, my ...'
'Not now, Mac. De la Cruz is the leader of the Restless
Ravens, he's the one who most concerns us ...'
'As he should. You know what they say, a tweetybird in the
hand is worth ...'
'Mac!'
'Come on, mother. Tweetybird. The Ravens. And Willy ...
Freudian, to say the least?'
At twenty-five past twelve, Quinn put his head into Masilo's
office. 'Reinhard Rohn, our man in Namibia, just called. He is in the arrivals
hall of Walvis Bay airport and waiting for Osman.'
'He knows he must be very discreet?'
'He knows.'
'How will he identify Osman?'
'I sent three photos to his cellphone.'
Masilo was content. 'Keep me up to speed.'
'I will...' Quinn hesitated. 'Advocate, this thing with
Tweetybird de la Cruz ...'
'Yes?'
'If the Supreme Committee ... This whole thing can spark a
war on the Cape Flats. If Suleiman Dolly starts whispering to their fellow Muslims
at PAGAD. The People against Drugs and Gangsterism might get very excited ...'
'I don't think Dolly will be that stupid. He wants the
diamonds, and if he foments trouble, the smugglers may look for another buyer.'
Quinn shook his head. 'I hope you're right.'
Fourteen kilometres east of Walvis Bay - and only two
kilometres from the border of the Namib Naukluft National Park - lay the Walvis
Bay airport, a tiny oasis in the flat and endless stretches of the Namib
Desert.
The modern airport building, with its grey steel roof and
salmon- coloured walls, stood among palm trees and small patches of green lawn.
For Reinhard Rohn, Presidential Intelligence Agency operative, the greatest
advantage and disadvantage was the fact that the building was relatively small
and the airport reasonably quiet. Departures and Arrivals were alongside each
other, and easy to watch. But someone trying to be discreet there had little
place to hide.
Rohn was a fifty-one-year-old veteran. Therefore he stood at
the windows looking out over the runway to make sure he identified Osman when
he disembarked from the plane, and on the way to the building. Rohn memorised
his face, the colour of the tailored suit (light brown), the open-collared
shirt (light blue) and the small black travelling case that Osman dragged along
on wheels.
Then he walked out of the building, across the grey-paved
path and the sandy parking area to where his white Toyota bakkie was parked. He
got in and wound the windows down, took the small pair of binoculars out of
the cubbyhole, focused them on the entrance, and waited.
Seven minutes later he saw Osman emerge, saw that the
coloured man had no other luggage, just the travel case.
He watched him as he walked to the Avis parking lot, until he
was out of sight.
Rohn switched the bakkie on and turned it around, so that he
could watch the correct access road.
At nine minutes past four in the afternoon Quinn reported to
his boss that Rohn's tailing of Shaheed Latif Osman in Walvis Bay had proceeded
perfectly.
'Osman
took an Avis car straight to the harbour, where he parked in front of the
offices of Consolidated Fisheries, in the area of the fishing fleet. He went in
to the company's building at 13.35 and only emerged two hours later, at 15.30.
After that he went to the Protea Hotel in Sam Nujoma Avenue, where he booked
in. Rohn also took a room and kept an eye on proceedings there. We are
researching Consolidated Fisheries, and Raj's people will have a report ready
tomorrow morning.'
At twenty past four Mother Killian summoned Jessica the
Goddess to give her the new task. When Jessica walked back to her work station
ten minutes later, spitting ('A fucking fishing company in a fucking boondocks
harbour town ...'), she broke Milla's intense concentration, so that she
raised her head from the bulky research on street gangs and said to Donald
MacFarland, 'Mac, there's stuff in here that does not reflect well on the
government.' 'So?'
'So, do I include it?'
'Of
course. Spy the Beloved Country, even if it hurts.' 'OK.'
Report:
Criminal Gangs of the Cape Flats
Date:
14 September 2009
Compiled by:
Milla Strachan and Donald MacFarland
Background
In the last decade of
the Apartheid-era, gang-related activities in the former Cape Province were limited
mostly to the former coloured group areas, especially in the lower
socio-economic neighbourhoods of the Cape Flats.
The type and extent of
their crimes was relatively limited, mainly as a result of international
isolation, limitation by the Group Areas Act, and an
effective,
experienced police force with extensive powers, including detention without
trial and dubious interrogation methods.
This situation began to
change subtly in the early nineties, when the former SA Police Force was used
more and more for suppression of political unrest. Street gangs could relax,
accelerate their recruitment and systematically expand their activities, which
up till then were small-scale and limited.
It was in fact the transition to a democratic government in 1994,
and the major changes in the following six years, that gave organised crime the
opportunity to move from a cottage industry to international players. The
following factors apply:
Post 1994: Opening of borders and international influx
Dispensing with strict
border control, and South Africa's re-entry to international trade resulted in
an influx of foreign tourists, currency and investment, which included the most
notorious players in trans-national organised crime. It was primarily the
syndicates from Nigeria, Russia, China, Italy and Colombia who saw the
opportunities, and who rapidly established themselves, mainly in Johannesburg,
Durban and Cape Town.
It is estimated that more than 100,000 Nigerian nationals
illegally entered South Africa in that period, and settled here.
Despite the country's
isolation, the South Africa of 1994 possessed excellent infrastructure - a
highly efficient banking service, excellent telecommunications networks, and extensive
road-, rail-, and air-links.
Crime syndicates
benefited just as much from these as the foreign investors and legal new
businesses.
In addition, there was
already a basic framework of organised crime in place, in the form of the gangs
of the Cape Peninsula. Heroin and cocaine in particular began flooding into the
country, and found an existing basic handling and distribution network, however
unsophisticated.
The smuggling of, and trade in, other drugs, arms, ivory,
wood, precious stones, abalone and humans, increased gradually.
A weakened police force and modern legislation
In the midst of the
influx of trans-national crime syndicates, from 1994 to 1998 the former SAP
transformed into the new South African Police
Services (SAPS).
Ironically, the consequences of this process would be considered one of the key
factors in the rise of organised crime in the Western Cape in particular.
Affirmative Action, a
high percentage of resignations and retirements of senior officers, retraining and
redeployment, alteration of structures and transfers not only led to massive
loss of experience within police ranks, but also seriously harmed trust between
members and general morale within the Service. Infighting, frustration,
obstruction and politicisation contributed to the SAPS taking its eye off the
ball of organised crime.
Legislation on criminal
procedure, founded on modern, humanitarian, and internationally acceptable
human rights principles, also followed during this period, forcing law enforcers
to respect the rights of suspects, change arrest protocols and interrogation
techniques considerably (including a total shift from the so-called confession
formula - read physical intimidation - of the Apartheid-era).
To a large degree,
crime intelligence collapsed as a result of this, and had to be rebuilt from
the ground up.
The result was a window of opportunity for organised crime,
which was utilised fully.
With the police
paralysed, civilian resistance to crime in the coloured areas exploded. The
most famous of these was PAGAD (People against Gangsterism and Drugs), the
Muslim pressure group that initiated vigilantism against gang bosses in the
Cape Flats in 1996.
Marches on drug houses,
shooting incidents, assaults and elimination of leaders seriously interfered
with existing gangs, destroyed command structures, and dramatically limited
criminal activities.
It was an evolutionary
process for gang leaders - only the strongest survived. The remaining syndicate
bosses reacted by forming the Community Outreach Forum, or CORE. The name was
deliberately cynical, and had nothing to do with the community whatsoever. It
was a consolidation and regrouping, and, for the first time in their history,
organised crime bosses agreed to cooperate. They set up a small, effective
executive committee, which, within months, had streamlined money laundering,
smuggling and international cooperation and taken them to new heights of
professionalism and secrecy.
The other consequence
of PAGAD's behaviour was that the senior management of the gangs moved out of
the coloured community and into traditional white neighbourhoods - and expanded
their activities to these areas as well. The sale, especially of cocaine and
marijuana, among others, found a new market.
A final factor was the parliamentary acceptance of the POCA
(Prevention of Organised Crime Act), wide-reaching legislation that also gave
the State the power to confiscate the assets of gang leaders and their
confederates.
The Restless Ravens
were a relatively small, but very effective street gang that in the early
nineties mainly operated in Manenberg, Bonteheuwel, Bishop Lavis, Heideveld,
Surrey and Primrose Park.
Their leader was the
ruthless, ambitious and highly intelligent Willem (Willy) 'Tweetybird' de la
Cruz (53), who had by then already served two terms in jail, for assault
(1978-1981), and robbery (1983-1988). He owed his nickname to his hobby, the
breeding of budgies, but also from the ritual of placing a living bird in the
mouth of traitors after he had killed them.
De la Cruz and the
Restless Ravens profited largely from the chaos that PAGAD caused in 1996.
Particularly because they were small and therefore seen as less of a threat,
PAGAD generally left them in peace. Not only did the Restless Ravens survive
this period, but as a result of the vigilantism, they acquired new recruits and
new territories.