Lifting the Veil of Extortion in Cape Town

By Peter Gastrow

Extortion is not likely to be uppermost in the minds of those South Africans, or the tens of thousands of international tourists, businesspersons and migrants who regularly flock to Cape Town to enjoy the beauty and prospects that the city has to offer. In the past, public discussion about extortion in South Africa was limited and media coverage sporadic. Reports focused mainly on isolated instances of extortion in the entertainment and nightclub areas of central Cape Town. Extortion-linked murders of foreign nationals running shops also received only occasional coverage. But the silence around extortion changed significantly during 2020. From about August and September 2020, the media began to increasingly report on a significant expansion of extortion rackets in central Cape Town.

The phenomenon, reportedly, was no longer confined to the night-time entertainment industry but increasingly affected small day-time businesses, including restaurants and coffee bars. This is likely to have been linked to the effect of the COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, which affected the night-time entertainment industry. More alarmingly, reports appeared of a surge in extortion incidents in township areas on the periphery of the city. In places such as Khayelitsha, Gugulethu and Philippi, South African residents were being targeted by extortion gangs.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2021. 63p.