Cape Town - Sinister visits, drug abuse and backstabbing plagued what was once Cape Town’s strongest bouncer network run by some of the city’s most notorious businessmen, a court heard this week.
It also emerged that Jacques Cronje, former right-hand man of murdered underworld kingpin Cyril Beeka and once a senior member of the bouncer racket, felt threatened by at least two of his colleagues.
Cronje this week gave evidence in the Cape Town Regional Court case involving Sea Point businessman Mark Lifman and his former partner, Andre Naude.
They are accused of running a bouncer company – Specialised Protection Services – that was not registered with the Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority.
SPS, an amalgamation of two rival companies, one run by Beeka, was launched in 2011.
But it was shut down months later when it emerged it was not registered.
This week the State closed its case against Lifman and Naude. Rudi Krause, for the men, said he would apply for the duo to be discharged.
Cronje told the court he had been unfairly forced out of the company. But during cross-examination and re-examination, he often mixed up dates.
Krause put it to Cronje that he had approached Naude to amalgamate the two security companies.
He said at that point there were “already motions in place to obtain uniformity in the bouncers in Cape Town”.
Krause said Lifman had told Cronje he wanted business to be conducted properly.
“(Lifman) had a problem with the way you conducted yourself. (Lifman) insisted you clean up your act, you stop using cocaine,” he said.
Krause said Lifman had given Cronje six months to get back on track and had offered to pay for his rehabilitation.
Cronje said he had done this, but he and Lifman then fell out.
He said Lifman had sent armed company managers to stand outside his gate.
Among the SPS company directors was Colin Booysen. Another was Booysen’s brother Jerome Booysen, named in another court case as the head of the Sexy Boys gang and as a suspect in Beeka’s murder in 2011.
Cronje had later faced allegations of misappropriating company money, assault and missing meetings.
The case will resume in June.
The men behind SPS:
* Mark Lifman, a Sea Point businessman who is on trial for allegedly running the Specialised Protection Services company illegally. Lifman was recently in the news for being given a R388 million tax bill by the South African Revenue Service.
* Andre Naude, a northern suburbs businessman, is also on trial for allegedly running the company illegally. Naude was wounded in a shooting outside a Bellville eatery in October. The suspected shooter, Turk Bora Unuvar, fled the country.
* Jerome “Donkie” Booysen was identified in a 2012 court case involving a Serbian fugitive as a leader of the Sexy Boys gang by a policeman and as a suspect in the 2011 murder of underworld boss Cyril Beeka.
* Colin Booysen is Jerome Booysen’s brother. He was wounded in a drive-by shooting in Belhar in May 2013.
* Leon “Lyons” Davids was killed in Belhar in October 2013. Davids apparently witnessed Beeka’s murder.
Weekend Argus