The Stellenbosch Mafia: Inside the Billionaires’ Club tells the story of some of South Africa’s wealthiest individuals, who reside in the birthplace of apartheid leaders, intellectuals, newspaper empires and more – Stellenbosch.

In the video below, author and News24 assistant editor for in-depth news Pieter du Toit explains what his book is about, and illustrates how much influence ‘The Stellenbosch Mafia’ exerts on the country, be it culturally, economically or politically.

Q: What is the book about?

A: The Stellenbosch Mafia is about a group of businessmen in the picturesque Boland town of Stellenbosch in the Western Cape. The term ‘Stellenbosch Mafia’ has become a loaded term referring to this group of businessmen [Johann Rupert, Whitey Basson, GT Ferreira, Edwin Hertzog, Michiel le Roux and Jannie Durand] – all billionaires, most of them Afrikaans, all of them white, and seemingly led by one Johann Rupert who, incidentally, denies being a member of the mafia because he lives in Somerset West.

Q: Does the Mafia exist?

A: I think they exist as a network; I don’t think there’s anything illegal about what they do, but what’s certainly true is there’s a strong interconnected grouping of extremely rich and influential businessmen who call Stellenbosch their home, their base, and they do exert an enormous amount of influence over various industries in the country and, quite definitely, in politics too.

Watch the video:

Categories Non-fiction South Africa South African Current Affairs

Tags Interviews Jonathan Ball Publishers News24 Pieter du Toit Stellenbosch The Stellenbosch Mafia Videos YouTube