Investigations, features, analysis and opinion for News24, the Sunday Times, Daily Maverick, Vrye Weekblad and others.
Writing
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Opinion · News24 · 3 September 2026
No gangs dismantled, no peace won: Operation Prosper’s thin record
Not a single gang has been dismantled, firearms remain abundant, and arrests cluster at the bottom of the criminal economy. This is the thin record of Operation Prosper.
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News · News24 · 22 March 2026
Wounded, alone, facing death: More South Africans fighting in Russia’s war plead for help
South Africans caught in the Russia-Ukraine war recount harrowing tales of deception and racism as they battle to survive.
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Feature · Sunday Times · 12 March 2023
Mpumalanga: landscape of fear
A complex, corrosive combination of organised crime, deep-seated corruption and toxic local politics continues to bedevil Mpumalanga.
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Analysis · Sunday Times · 25 September 2022 · with Mark Shaw
The dark, tangled web strangling SA
Some 15 interlinked criminal markets, from extortion and kidnapping to infrastructure theft and illegal mining, now threaten South Africa’s institutions, economy and citizens. The authors trace the rise in murder since 2011 and set out what sustained reform would require.
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Opinion · Daily Maverick · 7 August 2022 · Also in News24
Zama zamas just one part of a multibillion-rand organised crime economy that threatens South Africa
Illegal gold mining is one strand of an organised crime economy that reaches from central government to the JSE and the spaza shop, sustained by weak policing, corruption and the laundering of gold through dealers, refineries and VAT fraud.
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Analysis · Sunday Times · 10 April 2022 · with Julia Stanyard
What about the devil on our doorstep? The bloody conflict raging in Mozambique
The SA government not only ignores Mozambique’s bloody insurgency, it doesn’t move against its own citizens financing terrorism in neighbouring countries.
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Opinion · Daily Maverick · 21 September 2021 · with Jo Shaw
Saving rhinos is a litmus test for tackling organised crime and corruption in South Africa
In the 11 years since one of the world’s most-wanted rhino poachers was arrested, thousands of rhinos have been killed, while the issue has faded from the headlines. But there are signs of hope.
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Analysis · Vrye Weekblad · 9 October 2020 · with Mark Shaw
Beyond mere Cape gangs: powerful, dangerous and nationwide
Cape Town’s gangs are no longer a local aberration. They are a platform for organised crime across South Africa, led in several cases by crime bosses with national reach.
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Analysis · Sunday Times · 4 October 2020 · with Mark Shaw
Inside SA’s police assassination problem
The killing of a top cop outside his home in Cape Town puts South Africa at a crossroads, in a landscape where political contests, turf wars over transport routes, gang rivalries and police officers who resist corruption are routinely ‘sorted…
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Feature · Financial Mail · 15 July 2016
The crooks behind rhino slaughter
Crime syndicates thrive as South Africa fails to stop the killing and export of endangered animals.
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Feature · Environmental Investigation Agency · 14 February 2014
Untouchable? Wildlife crime kingpin Vixay Keosavang
Vixay Keosavang, the Lao businessman at the head of the Xaysavang network, has been linked to the trafficking of thousands of animals and to the trade in rhino horn and lion bones from South Africa. His lieutenants Chumlong Lemtongthai and…