Police are investigating whether the assassination of bouncer boss Cyril Beeka is linked to a four-year-old murder investigation of another underworld figure, Yuri “The Russian” Ulianitski.
Sources believe the modus operandi of the hits was the same and that indications are that the people involved in Ulianitski’s murder were also implicated in Beeka’s.
Ulianitski and Beeka were close friends, and “The Russian” had worked for Beeka.
Ulianitski was shot dead – in a hail of 20 bullets – by unknown gunmen who drove alongside him in a Toyota Tazz while he was driving to his Milnerton, Cape Town, home in 2007.
Beeka was gunned down in Cape Town on Monday by an unknown gunman riding on the back of a motorcycle.
On Tuesday, organised-crime detectives reopened the investigation into Ulianitski’s 2007 murder to determine whether the shooters were the same, and Western Cape police have deployed several high-profile squads – including the Organised Crime Unit – in their hunt for the assassins.
It was also established that Beeka was gunned down after he had visited the alleged former Sexy Boys gang leader, Jerome “Donkie” Booysen. Police believe Beeka was trying to broker a “peace deal” with Booysen to avoid a nightclub security turf war.
“The meeting was to say ‘let’s all stick to our own areas’,” said the source.
Booysen confirmed that he and Beeka had met for a brief business meeting.
“Both of us buy properties. It was a formal meeting but it did not last long. I was very busy and he had some place that he needed to be at too. We have a 12-year friendship, you know,” said Booysen.
Sources, who do not want to be named, told The Star they questioned the timing of Beeka’s murder, just a week after fugitive Czech businessman Radovan Krejcir was implicated in insurance fraud.
A police source also said Beeka’s relationship with his business partner Krejcir had been deteriorating since January last year and that Krejcir’s business partners were not friendly with Beeka.
“They had a big argument, and business dealing started going sour, and things haven’t been the same since,” the source said.
“His business dealings in Joburg were also very rocky.”
A source from the private security industry, who could not be named, told The Star it was believed that Beeka was shot by a professional hitman. “Both the car and bike were moving when the shooting happened, but the bullets were kept in a small range – just slightly bigger than the width of holding two hands together. The car was not riddled with bullets.”
Beeka, who was sitting in the passenger seat, is believed to have been shot at least four times in the head, while the driver was shot in the chest.
“One of the bullets went through Beeka’s eye, a second went through the back of his head and the other two to his face,” a source said.
SA Secret Service boss Moe Shaik would not speculate about the reason behind the murder.
However, he said he was saddened by the murder of his long-time associate.
Meanwhile, two of Beeka’s brothers, David and Daniel, yesterday visited the crime scene where parts of the BMW 4x4 in which Beeka died were still strewn alongside Modderdam Road.
Daniel Beeka said he spoke to his brother 20 minutes before the shooting.
Beeka’s driver, a Bosnian bodyguard known only as Sasha, was critically injured and is in the intensive care unit of a Cape Town hospital.
At the time of his death, Beeka was living in Joburg. He fled Cape Town eight years ago after a serious argument with another security company guarding nightclubs in Cape Town – but visited Cape Town once a month to see his children.
A police source said: “He was never very comfortable here. Even this time, he had a bodyguard who was armed, so that says enough.” - The Satr