Stacey Dooley TV - Masterminds TV - Mike Cohen - Misha Glenny - Ross Kemp TV - Four Corners 2013 - Zulu 2013 -
I’m in South Africa – a source of our most used illegal drug: cannabis. Stacey Dooley: The Cannabis Smugglers, BBC 2015
Swaziland is notorious for growing stronger weed. ibid.
Nyaope is a mix of cannabis and heroin. This often cut with HIV drugs, rat poison and other toxic substances. ibid.
It’s estimated that 15% of South Africans have a drug addiction. ibid.
He pulled off the most daring crime spree in South African history. A top cop turns into the country’s most celebrated criminal. Masterminds: The Stander Gang, truTV 2005
1983 ... The Trust Bank: three strange-looking men walked in cool as ice; it was a hold-up. ibid.
As police gathered clues at the Trust Bank they were completely unaware that a second bank robbery was taking place just a few streets over. And there was more to come: as police raced to the second robbery yet a third was being committed just around the corner. As they arrived too late for the third, around the corner was a fourth. Authorities had never seen anything like it before. And this was just the beginning. In one summer the gang hit over twenty banks. ibid.
He started hating everything the police stood for. So, as authorities continued to suppress the blacks, Stander secretly began fleecing the whites. ibid.
In August 1980 Andre Stander was found guilty of twenty-eight charges. ibid.
The whole gang was now out and on the run. ibid.
They prepared for the biggest crime spree South Africa had ever seen. ibid.
Stander lunged for his pistol. But it was hopeless. He was shot three times. He died instantly. ibid.
It was an amazing story, amazing part of South African criminal history. ibid. Mike Cohen, biographer
Two distinct but related gang cultures – one, known as ‘The Number’ was found throughout the coloured and black inmates of South Africa's prisons. The other lay in the coloured and black townships. Misha Glenny, McMafia
Nowhere were the gangs more powerful than in the coloured townships of Cape Town. ibid.
As apartheid began to crumble in the late 1980s and early 1990s the opportunities for the bosses stated to grow rapidly. Two supergangs emerged in the Cape Flats: The Americans led by Jackie Lonti, and later in opposition to them came The Firm (a carefully planned amalgam of several gangs excluded by the Americans). ibid.
By the late 1990s, some 15,000 cars and 5,000 vans and trucks were hijacked annually in South Africa, while another 100,000 were stolen while unattended. ibid.
With his considerable financial clout, Bout bought up Mafeking airport just south of the Boswana border, lock, stock and barrel, installing mechanics and administrators there and even paying the salaries of immigration officers. This was a key hub in the dispatch of weapons to other southern African countries, from where the planes would return with a payload of minerals and even commodities like rare fish and gladioli (for sale in the United Arab Emirates). ibid.
I’ve come to one of the world’s most violent places to meet one the world’s most violent gangs. Each moment brings me closer to an infamous brotherhood who rules through fear and terror … The Numbers Gangs. Ross Kemp on Gangs s2e4: Cape Town, Sky 2006
The Number has a pseudo-military hierarchy. ibid.
The smells, sights and sounds are overwhelming. ibid.
The Number comprise three gangs: the 26s, 27s and the 28s. ibid.
The [prison] authorities separate gang and non-gang prisoners. ibid.
There were now 130 street gangs on the Cape Flats. ibid.
‘When we went to school every one of us had a dream.’ ibid.
Across the land two gangs have been at war for a hundred years. They are called the Numbers Gangs. 28 vs 26. In prisons and on the streets they speak a secret language. They live and die by strict rules like enemies on a chess board. Four Corners 2013 starring Brendon Daniels & Lindiwe Matshikiza & Irshaad Ally & Adburagman Adams & Jezriel Skei & Jerry Mofokeng & Israel Makoe et al, director Ian Gabriel
The only way to defend your Number is with blood. There’s plenty ways to get in. There’s no way out. ibid.
Cape Town, South Africa, 2013 … ‘We know that this Stan is a Tik dealer.’ Zulu 2013 starring Forest Whitaker & Orlando Bloom & Tanya van Graan & Natasha Loring & Sven Ruygrok & Adrian Galley & Conrad Kemp & Roxanne Prentice & Tinarie van Wky Loots & Dean Slater & Kelsey Egan & Khulu Skenjana et al, director Jerome Salle, Whitaker as rozzer