The exposition of organised crime during the 1980s clearly indicates that a rapid expansion of this phenomenon occurred in South Africa during the decade. Key to this expansion were two factors: extraordinary profits derived from drug-trafficking and the relatively low risks involved as a result of the police prioritising national security issues over crime prevention and crime combating. Supply routes from abroad for the internal distribution of Mandrax, cocaine, LSD and other drugs expanded rapidly despite South Africa’s isolation and relatively well-controlled borders. The vast profits made by some small time gangs which gained access to the drug-smuggling networks in the country, encouraged them to intensify their activities. In doing so, they developed the necessary experience to become part of, or link up with existing organised criminal groups in order to make even larger profits. Once this happened, such criminal groups could no longer be regarded as gangs — they developed into crime syndicates involved in organised crime. This mutation of gangs into organised crime syndicates was widespread in the 1980s.

The political transformation and the resultant ‘opening up’ of South Africa during the early 1990s, provided an ideal opportunity for organised crime structures to use the foundations built during the 1980s as the springboard from which to dramatically expand their activities. The new environment continued to have low risks and offered even more opportunities for organised criminal groups than during the 1980s.

The composition and variety of structural arrangements within and between South Africa’s organised crime syndicates have not changed significantly since the 1980s. They continue to have no typical organisational structure. They generally do not operate as closed, structured, or self-contained organisations. According to senior detectives in the SAPS, the syndicates, relationships and methods of operating as illustrated by Case Studies 1 and 5, are typical of the better established indigenous crime syndicates active in the country at present. Many have moved out of gang-focused criminal activities into more elevated syndicate crimes fairly recently. They vary in size, are becoming more sophisticated and often link into existing criminal networks to achieve their aims. They tend to rely on the assistance of individual ‘freelance’ criminals or other syndicate networks to achieve their objectives. Shifting alliances or associations with other criminal organisation are frequent. While most crime syndicates might have a small core group of members who concentrate on the criminal activities of their syndicate only, the ‘membership’ of most syndicates consists of floating members who may be linked with, and working for a number of other syndicates at the same time. In this sense, one could describe many of South Africa’s criminal organisations as being involved in ‘disorganised’ organised crime.

The lack of more extensive interaction by South Africans with the international community during the past few decades, partly as a result of South Africa’s international isolation, had the effect of constraining the pace at which local criminal organisations could establish international links or adopt some of the more sophisticated methods of operation which international crime organisations were using. However, indigenous criminal groups, to an increasing extent, have linked into the criminal activities of foreigners who moved to South Africa during this decade.

Encouraged by their rapid expansion and the lucrative spoils of their criminal activities, a growing number of indigenous criminal organisations enhanced their skills and sophistication, discarding typically gang-related criminal activities for the more sophisticated crimes committed by crime syndicates. Although most of these criminal organisations have not yet reached the degree of expertise and confidence to operate internationally in the way that Russian, Nigerian, Israeli or Chinese crime syndicates do, they are on their way towards that phase.

There are no indications that senior state or government structures have been infiltrated by organised criminal groups to any significant degree. In many developing countries, including many African states, this has become a common feature. The warning lights, however, are flashing. Local government structures, which provide the easiest form of access to government departments, provincial and national government and state institutions, are being targeted by criminal organisations for infiltration. The most concrete example is the public announcement that CORE, an organisation on the Cape Flats, established through the involvement of many known gang leaders, intends to become involved in local elections.

South Africa therefore still has an opportunity to stem the rot, something which many developing countries can no longer do because the degree of infiltration and extent of contacts with persons of influence have become such that criminality and corruption have almost become endemic. To use a cliché, a window of opportunity still exists for South Africa. Decisive steps to curb organised crime during the next few years need to be taken. The risk of engaging in such activities needs to increase and the chance of making vast profits has to decrease. To achieve these objectives would require a regional approach involving the co-operation of Southern African states.

Both the United Nations and the European Union now approach organised transnational crime as an international security threat. Worldwide, policy, legislation and police investigative approaches are being reviewed and recast in order to counter this threat. South Africa will have to act quickly to catch up with these developments. The international experience in dealing with organised crime from a legislative, policy and policing perspective is something which South Africa is presently going through as well, although the country still lags behind in important respects. International thinking and law enforcement have shifted from initially targeting customers, to focusing on street-level operators, then to leading crime figures such as syndicate and gang leaders, to international enforcement and finally, the most recent strategy, the targeting of the proceeds of crime. The financial gains of criminal activities are now regarded as the crucial target area for successful operations against organised crime structures. This approach of ‘targeting upwards’,41 i.e., to the proceeds of crime at the highest levels, has played a significant role in stemming organised criminal activities in Italy and the US.

In South Africa, the general approach during the 1980s can be said to have been incident and lower level-oriented in that the police targets were mainly the customers, street-level drug pushers and similar types of criminals. From 1991 onwards, when the threat of organised criminal groups became apparent, police investigative methods were increasingly aimed at syndicate leaders and crime bosses. This is what the project-based approach towards criminal investigations was designed to achieve. Despite some successes, it is apparent that the removal of a syndicate leader does not necessarily mean the end of the syndicate or its activities. Others soon step in to take over. More sophisticated crime leaders increasingly conduct themselves in such a way that they avoid any physical contact with the criminal commodity or with the persons who actually commit the crime as part of the conspiracy. Existing legislation in South Africa still falls short when targeting such crime leaders for prosecution.42

In the US and Canada, the approach of ‘targeting upwards’ was pursued by the law enforcement agencies during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Their goal was to take out kingpins responsible for running the organised crime operation. In the mid-1980s, however, a policy shift took place: "More practical, and possibly more attractive in periods of fiscal restraint, was a philosophy that recognises that these criminals were involved in a specific type of crime in order to generate large amounts of proceeds. Locking up low-level operators would do little to disable the criminal operations, and while it was still occasionally essential to target key criminal figures, seldom was law enforcement able to get high enough to remove the top level. What did seem possible was to focus law enforcement’s attention on the money that was illegitimately gained. Focusing on the money was also seen as a way to identify the higher-echelon criminal members ... Top-echelon criminals who isolate themselves from the daily operations of trafficking actively take part at the stage where the illicit proceeds return cleansed."43

The growing attention on criminal proceeds created an awareness of the necessity to trace illicit proceeds through the complex schemes devised by criminals — hence the increasing focus on international money laundering.

In South Africa, a shift of focus towards the proceeds of crime and money laundering only occurred after 1994. In 1996, the Proceeds of Crime Act, No 76 of 1996, was passed and in the same year the Money Laundering Control Bill was drafted by the South African Law Commission. This bill has still not been presented to Parliament for finalisation. While tentative policy adjustments have been made, the actual implementation of steps by the criminal justice system to confiscate the proceeds of crime have lagged behind. The Proceeds of Crime Act is complicated, has a number of loopholes and has hardly been used.

An agreement to co-operate on matters relating to the combat of crime was signed by eleven Southern African States, including South Africa, in October 1997. This constitutes a clear advance on past conditions, but it does not focus on specific joint steps and strategies to be applied against transnational criminal organisations. To criminals involved in such activities, national borders have increasingly become irrelevant. Law enforcement agencies in Southern Africa will increasingly have to agree on steps to reduce the obstacles which national borders and differing legal systems still present to law enforcement agencies dealing with organised crime in Southern Africa.

Both the United Nations and the European Union are in the process of drafting comprehensive treaties to co-ordinate international efforts in countering organised crime. South Africa needs to ensure that, at the level of policy, legislation and resource capacity, it takes urgent and determined steps to link up with the international efforts against organised crime.