Cape Town - Allegations of intricate underworld dealings involving 28s gangsters working with police officers and controlling the club scene in Strand have emerged following the arrests of three policemen there.
Sources said some police officers were so close to gangsters they would brazenly frequent a club in Strand run by 28s members, even bowing to them in greeting.
This club, which was relaunched earlier this year under another name, was apparently a meeting place where gun and drug deals were discussed.
At one stage the club was owned by Nathaniel Moses, 32, also known as Nigga, a boss of a faction of the 28s called The Mobsters. He was murdered in Strand in January. An affidavit related to Moses’s killing, made by a gangster and apparent accomplice to the murder, pointed to police involvement.
The affidavit claimed a senior police detective gave his official hand radio to gangsters so they could monitor police officers’ whereabouts.
Possible dubious dealings involving police in Strand surfaced publicly last month when the policeman were arrested.
Two other officers, one from Parow and another from Macassar, were also taken into custody.
At the time police spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Andre Traut said the arrests were part of a mammoth two-year investigation dubbed Operation Elephant.
This operation, which initially focused on hijacking and robberies in and around Strand, but then turned into an investigation into police corruption, was ongoing, and more arrests were expected.
This week Traut would not confirm or deny whether Operation Elephant also involved probing Moses’s murder, and police officers’ links to 28s gangsters.
“This office cannot respond to specific questions, due to the operational nature thereof,” he said.
Moses was shot at least six times in the head outside a car rental dealership in Main Road, Strand, on January 15.
Police sources said his murder, one of the most high-profile underworld killings in the province this year, was to edge The Mobsters out of the drug trade which they were dominating in several areas. His murder sparked several other gang shootings around Cape Town.
A February affidavit by a self-styled whistleblower, who was also a 28s gangster and told police he was involved in orchestrating Moses’s killing, fingered police officers, as well as top alleged gang kingpins as involved in the attack.
The whistleblower’s credibility has been questioned, but sources said this week police officers were suspected of being linked to Moses’s killing.
They said police had been working with The Mobsters, who they said had carried out assassinations to maintain control of drug and gun trade.
Sources said The Mobsters had also carried out hits for 28s gang kingpin George “Geweld” Thomas, who was last year sentenced to seven life terms in jail. The whistleblower’s affidavit, leaked to Weekend Argus, said Moses’s murder “was planned to perfection, right down to the very last details and would most likely end up being an unsolved murder”.
“The police officers on the payroll of an alleged gang boss already informed him about how many vehicles are on patrol in the area where the hit was planned to take place, as well as how many firearms are in the safe at the station, how many officers are on duty in the charge office.”
Weekend Argus