South Africa

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South Africa, DM168, Maverick News

‘26s gang may kill me if you send me home’ — UK drug convict fights SA deportation

Mark Lifman and his co-accused face several charges related to the murder of ‘steroid kingpin’ Brian Wainstein. Lifman has not been accused of being a gangster. Testimony about the 27s case has surfaced in the trial.Photo: Jaco Marais/Gallo Images

By Caryn Dolley

12 May 2024

South Africa’s notorious gang scene has cropped up globally as violence rages on locally. This time a UK convict, originally from this country, has tried to claim asylum there, saying he could fall victim to 26s gangsters if deported here.

The far-reaching implications of South Africa’s gangsterism epidemic are becoming apparent, with a convict in the UK trying to claim asylum there, saying that if he is sent back to this country, where he is originally from, gangsters might kill him.

He has also told authorities there that a friend of his, a gangster who warned him about being targeted, was subsequently murdered.

These allegations have emerged in the UK as major organised crime cases are developing in South Africa’s gangsterism capital, the Western Cape, which has recently experienced a surge in shootings.

Through Western Cape court cases more details are being revealed about the operations of the notorious number gangs – the 27s and 28s.

The UK asylum matter, meanwhile, references the gang in the middle of those, the 26s.

The number

It previously emerged in a Western Cape High Court case, based on testimony from a former policeman, Jeremy Vearey, that the 26s represented the “economic” or “business” sector of the number gangs and were tasked with getting hold of money.

The 27s were soldiers or “men of blood” who “wage war” and conducted killings in ways that involved lots of blood.

And the 28s, according to Vearey’s testimony, were “a paramilitary structure”, and the “political authority” or “parliament” of the number gangs.

Read more in Daily Maverick: What SA’s blood-spilling prison gangs wanted Mandela to know — ‘Our history is also one of resistance’

The matter playing out in the UK relates to the 26s and outstanding drug money, which therefore ties in with what the gang is known for in South Africa – getting hold of cash.

A decision from the UK’s Upper Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber, which allows a man, originally from South Africa, to have an appeal about a human rights and a protection claim matter reheard, provides insight into the case.

The document, issued on 25 March 2024, outlines his background, and says he was convicted of various drug and violence related charges in the UK between 2017 and 2020.

gangs Vearey Former policeman Jeremy Vearey was involved in investigating gang cases, especially in the Western Cape, as well as police officers funnelling firearms to gang suspects. (Photo: Leila Dougan)

‘Friend shot dead’

The man – the appellant – was granted anonymity in the case and therefore may not be named.

He was previously found to have been vague and “not reliable” about being threatened.

But because his case is set to continue, this will likely include his assertions and situation being relooked at.

A section of the UK asylum chamber decision document says: “The Appellant claims that he will be at risk on return [to his home country] from a gang known as the 26s which operates in South Africa.

“He says this is because he owes money to that gang for drugs he held for them.

“A friend who was a member of the gang warned the Appellant that he would be shot and killed by the gang if he returned. Since that warning, that friend has been shot dead.”

No further details were provided about that incident.

A previous finding against the man was that his insistence that the 26s threatened him “is based largely on hearsay, from a claimed friend in South Africa and you have failed to provide any specific or conclusive evidence that you would be threatened or harmed on return to South Africa”.

More evidence may be used in his matter.

The decision document, enabling his appeal in the matter to be reheard, details how he arrived in the UK and ended up facing deportation from there.

gangs Stanfield Ralph Stanfield during a court appearance on 16 September 2023 in Cape Town. He and his co-accused face charges related to the illegal acquisition of firearm licences. (Photo: Jaco Marais / Gallo Images)

Violence and drugs

It said he was a South African citizen who moved to the UK in 2005 with his father and brother to join his mother.

The following year, he was granted “indefinite leave to remain” (otherwise known as long residency) in the UK, which the rest of his family had.

He was educated in the UK from the age of nine and subsequently worked in that country.

Based on the decision document, the man had visited South Africa and claimed to have had “meetings with members of the 26s gang”.

It was not clear when that was.

In April 2020 he was sentenced to two years and two months in jail in the UK for a grievous bodily harm case.

Deportation processes against him started after this.

A few months later, in September 2020, he was sentenced to another year in jail for possessing drugs and intending to supply them elsewhere.

Asylum

The man claimed not to have heard from the 26s gang since the start of 2020, the year he was sentenced to jail.

He was served a signed deportation notice in November 2021 and tried claiming asylum in February 2022.

According to a UK government website, to be recognised there as a refugee under a United Nations convention, being a member of a “particular social group” could prove one was “unable to go back [to a home country] because you have a well-founded fear of persecution”.

In the case of the man in the UK, he had claimed “that he is a member of the Particular Social Group, namely, a person who faces being killed by the 26s gang in South Africa as its members regard him as owing them money”.

A judge previously found, though, that he was not a member of a “particular social group”.

These issues and findings may change when the man’s case is reheard.

From left: Mark Lifman, Jerome Booysen and Andre Naude appear in the High Cape in Cape Town on 22 April. They face a host of charges, including murder, conspiracy to commit murder, money laundering and obstruction of justice. (Photo: Jaco Marais / Gallo Images)

Deadly gun attacks

The veracity of his allegations aside, these still point to the notoriety associated with, and extensive reach of, organised crime in South Africa.

Recently violence in the Western Cape specifically, where many gangs operate, has surged, with several shootings reported.

This week in Nyanga, four people were shot in one incident.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Bodies pile up in Nyanga with four gunned down in latest wave of escalating violence

The week before that, a few kilometres away in Khayelitsha, eight people were killed in three shooting incidents.

Meanwhile, emphasising that police and prosecutors are trying to hit back at the criminality, is the fact that there are at least three key court cases developing in the Western Cape.

The cases hint at how organised crime circles, involving the number gangs, overlap and how incidents in South Africa link to other countries.

Expanding criminal accusations

One case, which has several offshoots, is focused on alleged 28s boss Ralph Stanfield and his wife, Nicole Johnson.

Johnson and Stanfield have been behind bars since their arrest in the upmarket Cape Town suburb of Constantia in September 2023 in a car theft case.

Stanfield also faces an attempted murder charge.

Read more in Daily Maverick: ‘I want to empty a gun in his head’ – chilling affidavit about alleged 28s gang boss Ralph Stanfield’s ‘plans’

Other issues surrounding the couple are developing in different directions.

Aside from the car theft case they are accused in, they are also charged in another matter stemming from 2014 and involving allegations that police officers fraudulently created firearm licences for them and associates.

Last month, the government blacklisted a company Johnson runs that was also previously involved in building houses for the City of Cape Town, which in 2023 blacklisted several companies linked to her.

More arrests linked to Stanfield and Johnson were also made recently.

Last week Johnson’s mother, Barbara, was among three suspects detained in the growing case.

The three appeared in a Bellville court, and were released on bail, with Stanfield’s brother Kyle, who was arrested about two weeks ago on a charge of defeating the ends of justice.

Two trials

Stanfield’s name has cropped up in a big Western Cape trial that has an international angle.

According to the State, Stanfield was an associate of Brian Wainstein, a globally connected steroid smuggler who was assassinated in August 2017 in his home in Constantia, the same suburb in which Stanfield and Johnson were arrested last year.

Wainstein, also known as the Steroid King, had operated via countries including Ireland and the US.

Read more in Daily Maverick: From a hit to steroid deals, the other underworld suspicions surrounding alleged 28s boss Ralph Stanfield

Among those on trial in the Western Cape High Court for his murder are Mark Lifman and Jerome “Donkie” Booysen, who recently pleaded not guilty in that case and whose names cropped up in accusations about dodgy nightclub security operations.

The 27s gang fits into the Wainstein trial as allegations, surfacing via witness testimony, include that its members assisted in his assassination.

Back in 2021, before the Wainstein trial started, William “Red” Stevens, who was also an accused and widely reputed to have been the most senior 27s gangster in the Western Cape, was also murdered.

A second major trial playing out in the Western Cape High Court involves a group of men including Nafiz Modack, an alleged rival of Lifman and Booysen. This second group is accused in connection with the September 2020 assassination of policeman Charl Kinnear.

Kinnear was murdered outside his home in the Cape Town suburb of Bishop Lavis, parts of which are known as 28s gang strongholds.

Evidence and accusations that surface in the two trials, plus the Stanfield-related cases, will probably show how various individuals may be connected.

SA, apartheid and ‘torture’

While gangsterism is indeed a huge problem in South Africa, other individuals also facing deportation back to this country have before offered up some unusual reasons to try to prevent that.

One such case involves Chantelle Robbertse, of South Africa, who in 2019 was sentenced to two years in jail in the US over a fraud scheme.

She was 24 at the time and subsequently, in a bid to prevent being deported, sought relief under the Convention Against Torture, which effectively requires a state not to expel someone to another country where they may be tortured.

According to court papers from Robbertse’s matter, dated August 2023: “Robbertse asserted she would be persecuted or tortured in South Africa because she is white, her father had been a high-ranking member of military intelligence prior to 1998, and her family had otherwise been targeted by opponents of apartheid.”

That US court found that “Robbertse’s arguments and evidence regarding country conditions and the likelihood of torture fall well short” of meeting the requirements for the relief she was seeking. DM

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South Africa

The number

‘Friend shot dead’

Violence and drugs

Asylum

Deadly gun attacks

Expanding criminal accusations

Two trials

SA, apartheid and ‘torture’