Caryn Dolley chatted to Open News recently about her new book The Enforcers: Inside Cape Town’s Deadly Nightclub Battles.

Cyril Beeka. Mark Lifman. Nafiz Modack. These are just some of the controversial names that have become synonymous with Cape Town’s murky underworld over the years.

We’ve heard how the Cape Town nightclub scene has become a battlefield between gang bosses, alongside certain politically connected characters. Now, investigative journalist and author Dolley has delved deeper into the story.

‘With gang violence or shootings, stretching from the city centre all the way into gang hotspots, we shouldn’t view them as isolated incidents. Gangsterism is facilitated by corruption within the state, that in turn links to organised crime, illicit trades.

‘Basically what I hope the book gets across is that when you go to a nightclub in the city centre, for example, and something happens there, that isolated incident in the city centre links to what’s happening on the Cape Flats, which in turn links to incidents happening across South African border.

‘So what we’re seeing in Cape Town is just a fragment of transnational organised crime.’

Dolley says the book reveals how deep the connections really go, into government and a network of politicians.

Watch the interview:

Categories Non-fiction South Africa South African Current Affairs

Tags Caryn Dolley Jonathan Ball Publishers OpenNews The Enforcers Videos