Caryn Dolley’s ‘Man Alone’ sheds light on police collusion with organized crime in South Africa

The Man Alone book cover. (Image supplied)

8 Nov 2024

‘To a large extent I feel let down because what we sacrificed, what we went to the bush for, and what we sacrificed our families for is really not the end product that we are experiencing today. We are experiencing greed, corruption, and deceit.’ This from retired Anti-Gang Unit boss André Lincoln, at the book launch for investigative crime journalist Caryn Dolley.

Crime flourishes because some police are “inherently corrupt”, said André Lincoln, speaking at a well-attended book launch on Thursday, 7 October 2024. The launch was hosted by Senior Journalist Rebecca Davis, introducing Daily Maverick journalist Caryn Dolley’s book Man Alone: Mandela’s Top Cop – Exposing South Africa’s Ceaseless Sabotage.

Retired from the SAPS in October 2021, after Nelson Mandela appointed him to head the Presidential Investigation Task Unit, where he investigated state links to the underworld, Lincoln later became a boss of the Anti-Gang Unit in 2018.

Explaining how he felt serving in the police services, Lincoln said: “When it comes to serving the community, it makes me feel good. When I have to talk about the rot in the organisation… it doesn’t make me feel good. It is probably one of the rotten organisations,” said Lincoln, eliciting shock from the audience.

The book chronicles the life of Lincoln, a key figure in apartheid-era sabotage and global criminal investigations, serving as Nelson Mandela’s top cop. Lincoln also commanded Lieutenant-Colonel Charl Kinnear, a dedicated officer who investigated state ties to underworld crime and was tragically assassinated in Cape Town in September 2020.

Read more: Charl Kinnear assassination four years on – a trial plus ‘lies, deceit and empty promises’

In the book, Dolley writes that Lincoln has spent nearly a quarter of a century in the South African Police Service, he has witnessed murders, dead bodies, crime and adulthood shootouts. He’s been a convicted criminal, acquitted and exonerated, he’s also investigated global and local crooks as well as colleagues.

Dolley also exposes the persistent collusion between law enforcement and criminal organisations, tracing the roots to apartheid-era policing systems. She meticulously details how these networks and structures continue to influence policing practices today.

Trust issues

Speaking at the launch, Davis asked whether Dolley was able to trust someone who has been accused, convicted, and lived through apartheid and becoming Mandela’s top cop.

“As a journalist it has been a difficult one, and also my age worked against me.” Dolley said she trusts most people about certain aspects. “And then sometimes I just cannot know,” said Dolley. “The only truth is the death problem, the murdered people with their bodies, and I think for me, I’ve always worked from there.”

When Lincoln was asked the same question about trusting Dolley, he said: “When I first met up with Caryn, I didn’t trust her, I thought this is just another scam. However, slowly we knew each other, we started speaking, and today we have a book,” he said.

SAPS ‘no regard for law’

Asked by Davis about whether crime has gotten worse since his retirement in the police service, Lincoln was certain that it had. “It has gotten worse. It is bad when you see very senior police being charged with corruption, it is bad when you see policemen defeating the ends of justices and I think if there’s anybody, or group that has little regard for the law is the South African Police,” he said to a stunned audience.

Lincoln suggested that things are worse in high positions, and it then comes down to the police on the ground.

“I don’t think the rot is as bad on the ground as it is upstairs [because] that is where all the deals take place, that is where everybody enriches themselves. I am not saying corruption at any level is correct, but can you really blame the constable on the ground who takes a R100 because he cannot afford bread? Because the direction is coming from the top,” said Lincoln.

Read more: Cop arrest and transfer after repeat ‘missing’ guns scandal at Cape Town gang hotspot police station

Man Alone. (Image supplied)

Organised crime

“Organised crime cannot flourish without the assistance of police. The fact that we have a huge organised crime problem in this country [is because] all international criminals come here when they are in trouble in their own countries. The police are in the fourfront supporting it,” said Lincoln.

During the launch event, Dolley explained that organised crime goes back to the apartheid era, and this is also articulated in the book. “This way back in the 1980s… it was entrenched under apartheid, which is something that you can see and it is nothing new. And that is the frustrating thing that I am sitting here in 2024 talking about staff I have been writing about as a journalist 20 years ago,” said Dolley.

In a previous Daily Maverick webinar about the Man Alone book, Lincoln said “organised crime is that it cannot operate or survive without the help of the state. So whether it is police, politicians, functionaries in different state departments – it’s like that in all our state departments – whether you look at the police, or home affairs or finance or foreign affairs – it is there.”

Read more: How the state colludes with SA’s underworld in hidden web of organised crime – an expert view

The audience were given the opportunity to ask Dolley and Lincoln questions. One of the many asked was: how do top gangsters get to generals like Peter Jacobs and Jeremy Vearey?

Lincoln’s answer was not one you would expect. “I would like to look at it from a different angle. There are some senior policemen who are inherently corrupt. So the gangster does not get to him, he gets to the gangster because he wants to eat from the gangster and that is the reality,” said Lincoln as the audience went silent.

Last month, Major General Jeremy Vearey appeared at the Western Cape High Court, where he denied receiving a bribe of nearly R3-million from alleged underworld figure Nafiz Modack in an alleged attempt by Modack to have firearms confiscated by police returned.

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

Davis asked Dolley about the gang landscape, about some of the powerful gang groups or individuals in Cape Town currently.

Dolley listed the gangs:

28s Gang

Terrible Joster

The Mobsters

Read more: Gangstas’ Paradise – how the ‘bullet rule’ of gangsters is strangling the life out of SA’s Mother City

She added: “We thought the local gangs are at the centre, no… there are global cartels operating in Cape Town, there are international operations around the country. And if you think that the 28s are bad, can you imagine partnering with the Sinaloa Cartel? DM

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South Africa

Trust issues

SAPS ‘no regard for law’

Organised crime