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Shootings persist, children are being murdered, yet the Anti-Gang Unit is STILL ‘in disrepair’

Shootings persist, children are being murdered, yet the Anti-Gang Unit is STILL ‘in disrepair’
Ian Cameron, National Assembly Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Police t during the National Assembly (NA) sitting) on the South African Police Services? (SAPS) plans to deal with high levels of extortion in the country on September 03, 2024 in Cape Town, South Africa. The statement comes in response to an increase in reports of extortion in various business industries across the country, resulting in some businesses ceasing their operations. (Photo by Gallo Images/Brenton Geach)
Caryn Dolley
By Caryn Dolley
23 Feb 2025
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In 2021 Daily Maverick reported that the Western Cape’s Anti-Gang Unit may have been a gimmick to attract voters in the run-up to an election and that the police watchdog found it was poorly resourced. Now there is more to suggest it still lacks resources. Meanwhile, gang violence persists.

The Western Cape is South Africa’s gangsterism epicentre, shootings are reported continuously, and children are getting caught in the crossfire, but the very unit launched in 2018 to tackle this gang crisis has apparently never been properly equipped.

In 2021 Daily Maverick reported that the police watchdog, the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid), found the province’s Anti-Gang Unit (AGU) was not adequately resourced.

Daily Maverick also reported that the launch of the unit towards the end of 2018, which was attended by President Cyril Ramaphosa, appeared to be something of a gimmick in the lead-up to a general election – it may have been used to try to gain votes for the ANC.

Read more: Police were hung out to dry after President Ramaphosa’s 2018 Anti-Gang Unit launch fanfare

Serious issues surrounding the AGU, which despite its problems remains a critical crime-fighting tool, still run the risk of being overshadowed by politics.

263 gang murders


This is because the South African Police Service (SAPS), under which the unit falls, is widely viewed as being an ANC remit – and the AGU was launched when the ANC governed the country.

Individuals now highlighting problems at the AGU – some that had already been picked up in 2021 by Ipid, which was part of the national ANC-led government – are DA politicians, including JP Smith, whose office the police recently raided and who has claimed cops may be involved in a smear campaign against him.

When releasing South Africa’s latest crime statistics on 21 February 2025, Police Minister Senzo Mchunu said the Western Cape still had the highest number of gang murders – 263 were recorded over three months between October and the end of December 2024.

“The Police Ministry and the SAPS will review policing in high murder zones, and will decide on the concrete steps that need to be taken,” he said.



Beneath politics and collusion suspicions, shootings in the Western Cape therefore clearly persist.

Even while typing this article, this journalist was alerted to a suspected gang murder in Elsies River, Cape Town.

‘Nothing elite about it’


The first head of the AGU, now-retired policeman André Lincoln, has before gone on record saying: “Even up to today, [it] is probably the most underresourced unit.

“As much as the public saw the emergence of this elite unit, there was nothing elite about it. 

“Shortly after its launch it was simply turned into a crime prevention unit.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0KUeAWtuVY

Now the AGU is back under scrutiny.

On 18 February 2025, the DA’s Ian Cameron, who is Parliament’s police committee chair, carried out an unannounced oversight visit to the AGU, which is in Faure, between Strand and Stellenbosch.

His report-back did not contain completely new information, given previous findings about the AGU, but it was much more detailed – and dire.

Worse, it suggests that while the gang murder toll continuously increases in the Western Cape, conditions at the AGU have not improved since the first findings about it were published in 2021.

On Tuesday and Wednesday (18 and 19 February) last week, Daily Maverick asked the Western Cape police about conditions at the AGU based on Cameron’s findings.

While the query was acknowledged, we had not received a response by the time of publication.

‘Disrepair, water outages, slow internet’


After his visit on Tuesday, Cameron took to social media and listed problems at the AGU: “Office space is inadequate – detectives do not have proper offices and must use police stations for interviews. There is no dedicated interview facility, forcing them to work in makeshift conditions.

“Basic infrastructure is in complete disrepair: 210 members share just two female toilets and one male toilet.

“No cleaners – toilets are mostly broken, and blocked drains make conditions unbearable.”



Cameron added that there were water outages, sometimes lasting a week, and no emergency water supply.

Cable theft was also a problem, and Cameron said this disrupted the AGU’s power supply.

“Internet and communication systems are unreliable – extremely slow speeds mean that when one system fails (phones, internet or computers), all operations stop,” he said.

On top of all that, there was a vehicle shortage.

Cameron also donned his political cap.

https://youtu.be/Adp2BCVJOu8?feature=shared

In a video uploaded to the DA’s YouTube channel a day after his AGU visit, he said there was a problem with SAPS management.

“I’m not convinced that senior SAPS management in the Western Cape or nationally are really able, or capable, of managing or coordinating what these units need,” he said.

“It is unfair to expect these people to go and work in extremely dangerous circumstances without the resources that they are meant to have.”

Anti-Gang Unit Ian Cameron, Parliament’s police committee chairperson, in Cape Town on 3 September 2024. (Photo: Gallo Images / Brenton Geach)


Kinnear’s killing and former findings


JP Smith, the DA Cape Town mayoral committee member who heads the City of Cape Town’s safety and security portfolio, added his voice to the matter.

Last Wednesday, in a Facebook post about Cameron’s AGU visit, Smith said the “horrific discovery” confirmed longstanding suspicions of “the starved and deplorable conditions of the Anti-Gang Unit of SAPS within the Western Cape”.

For ease of reference, that Facebook post will be referred to here as Smith’s AGU post.

In his AGU post Smith also mentioned “a dramatic trial” playing out in the high court. This is where the matter extends to Lieutenant-Colonel Charl Kinnear, a member of the AGU who was assassinated outside his Bishop Lavis Home in Cape Town in September 2020.

It appears that Smith’s AGU post referenced the trial into Kinnear’s killing which is under way in the Cape Town High Court.

Aside from the criminal case that culminated in that trial, Ipid previously investigated why Kinnear was not under state protection at the time of his murder when he had clearly been under threat.

Read more: Anti-Gang Unit was not properly formed, had no adequate resources, failed to protect Charl Kinnear – SAPS watchdog

It had also focused on conditions at the AGU and in November 2021 Daily Maverick reported that Ipid had found the unit was underresourced. 

The Ipid findings referenced Lincoln, saying that during a previous interview with him he “confirmed our suspicion that the AGU was not properly formed and properly capacitated”. 

Its report on the matter added: “Reinforced vehicles were needed. 

“AGU members did not have the requisite skills, proper training or equipment to do the protection duties.”

Read more: Disband the Western Cape Anti-Gang Unit, police watchdog recommends to Bheki Cele

In June 2022 Daily Maverick reported that an updated Ipid report had recommended that the police minister should “strongly consider the disbandment of the Western Cape AGU unit and replace it with a task team consisting of members from different provinces to combat gangsterism, drug trafficking and human trafficking”.

So, that is what underpins Cameron’s AGU visit findings and what Smith said about it in his AGU post last week.

Cop collusion claims again


Smith, in the post, deviated further from directly focusing on conditions at the AGU.

In addition to referencing a high court trial, Smith listed several Cape Town individuals accused of crime, including Nafiz Modack, who faces charges relating to Kinnear’s murder.

Smith’s AGU post said the trial involved allegations of “collusion between top cops and those in the underworld”.

In the post, Smith also named two former police officers – Lincoln and Jeremy Vearey (who had both investigated Modack).

His post said Lincoln headed the unit until 2021.

Read more: Modack trial — murdered Mark Lifman and ‘colluding cops’ accusations resurrected

As for Vearey, Smith’s post referenced how Modack, during the Kinnear trial, had recently alleged that Vearey asked him (Modack) to share his stronghold over nightclub security operations with rival organised crime accused Mark Lifman, who was murdered in 2024.

Smith did not say that Vearey previously, during the trial, denied certain accusations Modack made against him.

Read more: Former detectives boss Jeremy Vearey dismisses Nafiz Modack claim that he took R3m in bribes

His AGU post called for the devolution of policing powers and ended with what appeared to be a cryptic warning of sorts.

It said: “While this would seriously endanger the freedom of those corrupt individuals involved, where they enjoy the secrecy they currently enjoy, we will not shy away.

“We are coming and we will not stop...”

Smith and Stanfield investigation


Smith’s AGU post also listed another suspect, “Ralph Stansfield”, although Smith presumably meant Ralph Stanfield, the alleged head of the 28s gang who is facing criminal charges in a developing case separate to the Kinnear murder trial.

Police raided Smith’s office, and that of mayoral committee member Xanthea Limberg, on 24 January 2025.

Read more: JP Smith raid – real victims may be key investigations into 28s gangsters, R8bn contracts and collusion

It is understood that the raid was linked to an investigation relating to the Stanfield case which involves City of Cape Town officials.

In 2024 the City’s former human settlements mayoral committee member, Malusi Booi, was arrested in that case, which involves tenders worth about R1-billion.

Booi was accused of accepting gratifications from Stanfield.

Read more: City of Collusion — the gang suspects and ex-officials accused of crafting Cape Town’s real ‘construction mafia’

Smith did not reference the raid on his office, nor the Stanfield investigation, in his AGU post last week.

Adding some intrigue to all of this is that on the same day as the January raid on his office, Smith said he was the target of a smear campaign, and that someone had sent him recorded conversations that revealed “a political conspiracy against me by political office bearers, a private security company, and possibly that of members within SAPS, yet undetermined at this stage if these are past employees or still serving within SAPS still today”.



Those words from last month, paired with his reference to Lincoln, Vearey and “corrupt individuals” in his AGU post last week, bring up questions including whether Smith was perhaps referring to the duo in his post-raid smear campaign statement.

Tragic reality – children shot


Beneath claims and counterclaims linked to politicians, specific cops and criminal cases, is the state of the AGU and the officers working there in the face of relentless gangsterism and violence. 

And the impact – the trauma – that gang battles produce.

A day before Cameron’s unannounced visit to the AGU, Daily Maverick reported that four-year-old Davin Africa had been murdered on Friday, 14 February.

Read more: Cape Town shootings — ‘unimaginable sadness’ as boy, 4, murdered two years after sister killed

He had been sleeping in his home on Happiness Street in Wesbank, about 30km from Cape Town’s city centre.

Barely two years earlier, in November 2023, his 12-year-old sister, Kelly-Amber Koopman, was murdered in the same area in a shooting that occurred at night while she was outside during a power cut.

Incidents involving children being maimed and murdered in shootings are not new, and they continue.

Read more: ‘Political hit squads’ and spying — repeat accusations point to dirty tricks gouging into Cape Town’s security

Full focus should therefore be placed on trying to prevent criminals from killing children – tragedies that can all too easily slip from the public radar and get lost beneath political and policing scandals. DM

Caryn Dolley’s explosive new book, Man Alone: Mandela’s Top Cop – Exposing South Africa’s Ceaseless Sabotage, is now available in bookstores and at the Daily Maverick Shop.

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