‘Boko Haram’ in Mamelodi: Shameless mafias embrace extortion-terror tactics

In a country with more muscle than opportunities, the big boys are after the producers.

Extortion practices have evolved from covert harassment with violence, implicit or explicit, to an open-air conflict that resembles a literal daytime robbery.

Tshwane’s latest high-profile extortion gang has even adopted the name of a terrorist organisation in homage to extremist tactics.

‘Boko Haramelodi‘

The Mamelodi gang calling itself ‘Boko Haram’ was reported by News24 because they targeted all types of businesses, from mechanics and hairdressers to gas stations and spas.

READ ALSO: Two Johannesburg police officers jailed for 10 years for extorting R14,000

The bigger the company, the higher the ‘protection fee’, but the police insisted that the sphere of influence was limited to the borders of South Africa.

“We cannot confirm that the gang has any links to gangs in Nigeria or any other country,” Gauteng police spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Mavela Masondo told The citizen.

Boko Haram was founded in the early 2000s and is designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department. In 2014, the organization came under fire when it kidnapped 276 schoolgirls in an area of ​​northern Nigeria.

Capetonian extortion “entrenched”

Reports of extortion practices have become more frequent in recent years, after being limited to discussions about SME opportunities in the northern provinces.

The Eastern Cape has been hit by a rise in extortion racketeering, while the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime (GI-TOC) has conducted a survey into the prevalence of extortion in Cape Town.

READ ALSO: ‘Pay or Die!’ − Eastern Cape Besieged by Extortionist Organizations

GI-TOC noted that extortion practices in Cape Town’s nightlife are now firmly entrenched and have been active for over two decades.

The study noted how tactics refined in this area were used to reproduce scenarios in the construction and transportation sectors and in the township economy.

“The methods developed in the Cape are also being exported throughout South Africa as individuals move between provinces,” the GI-TOC report said.

“The result is a criminal web of extortion, in which actors learn from each other and move freely between operations,” the report said.

Police extortion

The first GI-TOC study was published in April 2024, but the City of Cape Town had already launched an anti-extortion campaign in 2023.

However, it is difficult to monitor intimidation because the police definition of extortion involves ‘deliberate and unlawful pressure being exerted on a person’.

“The offence is not defined in South African law, but a common law description has evolved through historical legal influences,” the GI-TOC report further explained.

However, police are making positive progress as criminals become more brazen, with more than 700 arrests for extortion in recent months.

“If any citizen is intimidated or extorted by the so-called Boko Haram or by anyone else, he or she should initiate a criminal case at the nearest police station,” concluded Lt. Col. Masondo.

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