Gang bosses don’t just rule the streets anymore; they move in the grey zone between crime, business and politics. As Mark Shaw explains, organised crime often thrives where the state is weak, and violence becomes a tool to control markets and contracts.
https://youtu.be/jN7-cBm8RKE
Videos show Ralph Stanfield allegedly intimidating a Cape Town central line contractor who refused to use his family enterprise’s community-based organisations to hire those loyal to him as day labourers.
Sole asks in the discussion: Is this a kind of “Robin Hood” story, an alleged gangster trying to go legit by bringing “stability” to projects?
Watch the full conversation to hear the answer:
Watch AmaBhungane managing partner Sam Sole in conversation with Mark Shaw (GI-TOC) unpacking the rise of the 28s and how the fusion of prison and street gang power has reshaped organised crime around PRASA’s Cape Town rail rebuild.
Other information suggests significant contact between a top member of a Prasa security team, which reported only to Papadopulo, and another Stanfield associate to discuss the railway’s reconstruction.
Evidence shows Prasa security boss Alexio Papadopulo dealt directly with a close associate of alleged 28s gang boss Ralph Stanfield.
“When the state becomes weak or corrupted, it opens space for ‘violent entrepreneurship’, the use or threat of violence to control business environments.”
Mark Shaw explains how organised crime exploits public projects and weak governance.
AmaBhungane managing partner Sam Sole tells CapeTalk how PRASA security boss Alexio Papadopulo allegedly pressured contractors to subcontract to companies linked to Stanfield to “keep the peace” on the rail rebuild.
Watch the full conversation:
And by 2022, we had information he’d allegedly met directly with alleged 28s gang boss Ralph Stanfield over the reconstruction of Cape Town’s Central Line.”
“He first surfaced during Cyril Ramaphosa’s CR17 campaign as part of the president’s security team. Soon after, he turned up at PRASA as acting head of security.
Read the full investigation: Alleged 28s gang boss ‘captured’ mega rail project – with Prasa’s ‘help’
– Sam Sole, managing partner, amaBhungane, speaking to Lester Kiewit about the capture of Cape Town’s Central railway line.
When Stanfield was brought in, and his linked organisations were brought in, from Prasa's point of view, they solved that problem. But the question is, you know what compromise is involved in that?”
“It's a classic protection racket that we've seen in the construction industry; it's a classic mafia racket. You produce violence or the threat of violence, and then you say, you've got to cut us in…
Papadopulo told at least one contractor that the contact person for them to deal with was Stanfield’s brother, Kyle Stanfield, giving them his cellphone number to contact.
Prasa security head, Alexio Papadopulo, used his private and work emails to persuade Cape Town central line contractors to work with companies associated with reputed 28s street-gang boss Ralph Stanfield and his family enterprise.
Alleged organised crime boss Ralph Stanfield and his wife, Nicole Johnson, captured chunks of government’s multi-billion-rand Cape Town central line reconstruction project, with the apparent support of Prasa security head Alexio Papadopulo.
But Vision is piling on the pressure to reach a deal before a judge has anything to say.
Analysis: Mozambican group RGS has launched a last-ditch attempt to intervene in the Tongaat Hulett liquidation and evict the Vision consortium from its controlling position.
