South Africa

[Anonymous20]

Click post reply to discuss gangs in South Africa.

[Silencioso]

There was an article a while ago in a tatoo magazine about gangs in Cape Town, So. Africa. It was interesting. The gangs there seemed completely independant of any US influence.

Some of the main gangs include - Hard Living Kids, Mongrels, Scorpions, Young Dixie Boys, Sexy Boys, Young Americans. There's an anti-gang organization called PAGAD that's become sort of a gang in it's own right.

If you run a search on "Hard Living Kids" or "PAGAD" you'll find some interesting articles on Cape Town gangs.

[Snowman]

I recently saw a TV program over here called 'the world's deadliest gangs' and it had 2 episodes about the gangs in cape town, south africa.

PAGAD is a militant muslim group who's 'front' is an anti-gang organization. It would be like a hardcore moralist christian group getting together over in America. George Bush jr. even put them on his 'enem,ies' list recently.

The 2 main gangs in Capetown are the Hard Livings and The Americans. The Hard Livings dress like British gangsters, ie: football 'soccer' tops, stone island jackets, shell suits, tracksuit bottoms etc. and the Americans dress like American gangsters, ie: American Football tops, Fubu jeans, timberlands etc.

They are found all over the cape flats, and now apartheid is over and there are no longer rules about where you can live because of your ethnicity, they are no longer just a colored (ie, mixed race) gang, and have black, indian and even white members. The gang membership can be from little kids of about 5 to grown ups. Some people even bring their kids up as gangsters from infancy.

The founders of the hard livings were the Staggie brothers. Two psychotic ex-cons who used to throw money round their neighbourhoods, pay people's and hang out with the local kids, and buy them stuff from shops after school. Eventually they won the love of all the local people and people didn't mind that their kids were in their company because they're rent was being paid.

Eventually the brothers formed a gang from all the kids, and emposed the harsh prison gang reigeme on the kids. Eventually the gang turned into an extremily violent organized group and started fighting with other gangs like the Scorpions, JFKs and nazi gangs. Now in one particular township, called Manenberg, with a population of 300,000, there are 1,000 murders every year with less than 1% ever reaching the courtroom. The brothers would drive around in a BMW, pick up someone at random, drive out into the woods and tell them if they did not join the gang and kill a rival gangmember now, that they would sodomize them, castrate them and cut off their heads and leave the memains by their mother's front door. Rashaad Staggie was murdered by PAGAD in 1997, and his brother Rashied now lives in exile as a hermit, but the gang has continued to grow.

The Hard living's biggest rival, the Americans, were started by Jackie Lonte, a man with a passion for all things american. He even changed his name to sound more like an american gangster. He started recruting youths to sell drugs for him and eventually formed a huge gang, who gained a reputation for bullying all the kids at schools. They fought with the Hardlivings first over drug terretory, and it all started from there.

The hardlivings and Americans can be recognized because they willingly remove their front 4 teeth on the top jaw. The American's initiation ritual includes breaking up Mandraz tablets (a type of hullucinagen) and mixing it with marijuana and smoking the mixture. They are known to kill people by slitting their throat and pulling the toungue through the opening.

Go to Bravo TV's homepage and look up 'the world's deadliest gangs' page to find out more.

[bizzy]

my family is from cape town, and the gangs there are very dangerous. Its not so much the blacks but the coloured which is a mix and the race i am. The americans have a hq close to my grandmother and whenever i go there i hate walking past it. When i went over in 97 the place was bombed by the pagads i think its fairly crazy stuff, im not too sure but i think the cape town gangs are more dangerous than american ones!

[Snowman]

Ofcourse cape town gangs are more dangerous. South Africa is one of the most poorest countries in the world with really easy access to guns, and for decades the government really hasn't cared about blacks and coloureds, and would have rather they'd kill eachother to wipe themselves up.

Why did you hate going past the HQ? did they used to try and jack you and stuff?

[bizzy]

nah they wouldnt jack me, they may have to other people, but you just dont make any eye contact or anything like they will stare you down. You just get a really bad feeling when you walk past it. Btw South africa isnt that poor. Its one of the only countries in Africa that isnt 3rd World ! but yeah the gangs are pretty crazy. Its all because of the white policy they introduced years ago !

[Hyp Notica]

yo! supposedly these are the four cities worldwide top violence (not in order):

San Salvador, el salvador
Cali, colombia
Johannesburg, S.Africa
L.A. South Central or E.L.A...i dunno folx

[Anonymous20]

http://www.poy.org/61/wua/lurie01.php


check this out.. pics n stuff of manenberg, cape town..

damn... seems very americanized.. is it so? thug life n snoop on the wall, hehe

[bizzy]

lollllllllllll i posted that up a couple of months ago brother... good looking out though

[juniorx]

yo! supposedly these are the four cities worldwide top violence (not in order):

San Salvador, el salvador
Cali, colombia
Johannesburg, S.Africa
L.A. South Central or E.L.A...i dunno folx

what about Kingston Jamaica.. thats suppose to be as violent as they come..

[Lonewolf]

FOUND THIS ARTICLE - ITS KINDA WEAK - BUT ITS GANG RELATED.

Cape Town police lose war in ghetto

A 14-YEAR-OLD schoolgirl is gang-raped, stabbed 52 times in the back and dumped in a derelict house before her assailants casually slit her throat. Shots ring out through the night as another gang leader meets his death in a hail of bullets in a drive-by killing by a rival band of mobsters that has become the hallmark of gangland killings.

Teenagers armed with automatic weapons brazenly take up positions on the rooftops to take pot-shots at police officers as they race through the labyrinthine slums in pursuit of gang members who have just raided a liquor store.

“It’s crazy out there,” Inspector Adriaan Saulse of the Cape Town Police Gang Unit, said. “I’m 12 years in this business and I know we’re losing the fight against the gangs. We’re nothing more than firefighters. That’s about as much as we can do.”

Almost 200 people have been shot this year in what police have called the biggest gang war in living memory to have erupted across the Cape Flats — a vast urban sprawl under the shadow of Cape Town’s Table Mountain which served as a dumping ground during the apartheid era for people of mixed race, the “coloureds”, as they were called.

More than 150 gangs with a total membership of at least 120,000 people rule vast tracts of the derelict landscape, running rackets from drug dealing to prostitution, loan sharking and murder.

Through fear, intimidation and patronage, gangs such as the “Americans”, the “Hard Livings”, the “Mongrels”, the “Born Frees” and the “Sexy Boys” have created a mini-state which the South African authorities seem unable or unwilling to take on.

Tattooed, knife-wielding youngsters, wearing flashy clothes and driving fast cars, hang around street corners peddling Mandrax, crack and Ecstasy.

They deal in women and young girls and run protection rackets — anything that will make a quick buck.

Terrified residents complain that the neighbourhood has become a war zone and nobody is able to do anything about it. Sitting in the police unit’s headquarters on the edge of the Cape Flats, Mr Saulse agrees that he is fighting a hopeless battle.

“I’ve got 44 men and seven vehicles to take on the gangs,” he said. “I need a thousand officers to have any hope of making a dent in the problem. Our annual overtime budget is 70,000 rand (£7,000). That’s gone in two weekends. We can’t even afford to run a 24-hour operation any more.”

Gangs flourished in the Cape Flats under apartheid when the area was designated a “coloured area” — for people not black enough to be classified as Bantu or white enough to be European. But their numbers have since risen sharply.

Now the “Americans” are trying to take over the entire area, prompting nightly gunbattles between rival gangs fighting to retain control over their little patches of territory.

Communities on the Cape Flats are victims and beneficiaries of the gangland culture. They are the ones caught in the crossfire. It is their children who are raped, assaulted, recruited and murdered. Yet thousands benefit from the underworld economy of brothels, shebeens (illegal drinking dens), stolen goods, drugs and money laundering, which brings jobs and incomes to people who otherwise possibly may have nothing.

Repeated attempts to clean up the gangs have led nowhere. People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad), a vigilante group, was set up by Muslim clerics to take on the gangs, but soon degenerated into gangsterism. Its leading members are being tried for a number of terrorist incidents and the murder of Rashaad Staggie, a former leader of the “Hard Livings”, who was shot and set on fire by Pagad hit-men.

Three members of the Americans were each given two life sentences last month for the gang-rape and murder of Valencia Farmer, a schoolgirl of 14, whose broken body was found dumped in an abandoned building.

Once inside prison they will have to face the notorious jail gangs known as the “Numbers”: the “26s” who specialise in robbery, the “27s” who carry out killings and the “28s” who sodomise other inmates. “Even among that lot, the rape and murder of a child will not be tolerated,” a member of the police gang unit said. “They’ll be taken out with a sharpened spoon before long.”

But for every gang member sent to jail, there are another 100 potential recruits waiting to take their places. “Go to the primary schools and see for yourself,” Mr Saulse said. “There are kids there aged eight and nine talking the language of the gangsters. They are already part of the culture. They see the dealing and the killing. They can’t wait for the money and status that comes with gang membership.

“We go to the schools to warn the kids about joining the gangs,” Mr Saulse added. “I tell them that the average life expectancy of a gang member is very low. If you manage to get to 23, you’re very lucky. Most gang members are either dead or in prison by that age.

“But it doesn’t seem to make much difference. It’s all pretty bleak.”

[stephon]

I bet Bloods and Crips would run Cape Town.

[Anonymous20]

I bet Bloods and Crips would run Cape Town.

HAHHAHAHAHAHAHA u gotta be kidding man!! these african gangs r 20 times the fuckin size of a crip/blood gang mayn plz...and 300 times as crazy as well..they would eat (literally..) any fuckin crip or blood man cmon

[kenni]

yeah, true what canada/nl is saying.. it's sick :E

[Anonymous20]

"NOOO!?!?!?!?!? IS THERE ACCTUALLY CRIMINALS OUTSIDE AMERICA?!?!?!?!?!!?!?! ..."

said by an american

[Anonymous20]

"NOOO!?!?!?!?!? IS THERE ACCTUALLY CRIMINALS OUTSIDE AMERICA?!?!?!?!?!!?!?! ..."

said by an american

hwhahahahahahaha yupp...its fucked up a lot of americans actually think that way...simple minded (not 2 diss america but it really is true about a lot of americans..)//

[Kemosave]

Not many in reality. Your presumptious false assertion is not correct. As someone born in the Southland and raised in Los Angeles County who has traveled America I can assure you that you are cosigning a false remark. Bring your citations and I will refute them with US, Canada, and South America citations. You are wrong.

[perfecto31]

I recently saw a TV program over here called 'the world's deadliest gangs' and it had 2 episodes about the gangs in cape town, south africa.

PAGAD is a militant muslim group who's 'front' is an anti-gang organization. It would be like a hardcore moralist christian group getting together over in America. George Bush jr. even put them on his 'enem,ies' list recently.

The 2 main gangs in Capetown are the Hard Livings and The Americans. The Hard Livings dress like British gangsters, ie: football 'soccer' tops, stone island jackets, shell suits, tracksuit bottoms etc. and the Americans dress like American gangsters, ie: American Football tops, Fubu jeans, timberlands etc.

They are found all over the cape flats, and now apartheid is over and there are no longer rules about where you can live because of your ethnicity, they are no longer just a colored (ie, mixed race) gang, and have black, indian and even white members. The gang membership can be from little kids of about 5 to grown ups. Some people even bring their kids up as gangsters from infancy.

The founders of the hard livings were the Staggie brothers. Two psychotic ex-cons who used to throw money round their neighbourhoods, pay people's and hang out with the local kids, and buy them stuff from shops after school. Eventually they won the love of all the local people and people didn't mind that their kids were in their company because they're rent was being paid.

Eventually the brothers formed a gang from all the kids, and emposed the harsh prison gang reigeme on the kids. Eventually the gang turned into an extremily violent organized group and started fighting with other gangs like the Scorpions, JFKs and nazi gangs. Now in one particular township, called Manenberg, with a population of 300,000, there are 1,000 murders every year with less than 1% ever reaching the courtroom. The brothers would drive around in a BMW, pick up someone at random, drive out into the woods and tell them if they did not join the gang and kill a rival gangmember now, that they would sodomize them, castrate them and cut off their heads and leave the memains by their mother's front door. Rashaad Staggie was murdered by PAGAD in 1997, and his brother Rashied now lives in exile as a hermit, but the gang has continued to grow.

The Hard living's biggest rival, the Americans, were started by Jackie Lonte, a man with a passion for all things american. He even changed his name to sound more like an american gangster. He started recruting youths to sell drugs for him and eventually formed a huge gang, who gained a reputation for bullying all the kids at schools. They fought with the Hardlivings first over drug terretory, and it all started from there.

The hardlivings and Americans can be recognized because they willingly remove their front 4 teeth on the top jaw. The American's initiation ritual includes breaking up Mandraz tablets (a type of hullucinagen) and mixing it with marijuana and smoking the mixture. They are known to kill people by slitting their throat and pulling the toungue through the opening.

Go to Bravo TV's homepage and look up 'the world's deadliest gangs' page to find out more.

helluva post. Good information

[bizzy]

dude you are so funny as if crips and bloods would be in south africa. LOL
funny to the guy that said literally eat. I remember watching this story about a south african prisoner that ate a fellow inmates and a rival gangsters heart...These people are messed up, trust me i just got home from there yesterday so ready my new topic. IF ALONSO CREATES IT FOR ME

[Napolain]

What about Johannesburg a coulered gang called the lazy boys run that town they have about 2000 members. These gies r really dangerous and cause all types of shit

[silume]

Yeah, it's true that Cape Town gangs are violent lunatics. They wipe each other out on a daily basis. But in South Africa gang-culture is mostly limited to the coloured (mixed-race) community. They are the one segment of the population where you are likely to find rival gangs going at each other.

This does not, however, mean that black people and white people are not involved in gangsterism. It's just that way they go about it is different.

WHITE GANGS
Deal in drugs like cocaine, meths etc and rackateering. They also run nightclubs and other night spots, through which they peddle their drugs.
Big on white collar crime as the previous government put white people in positions where they access to all sorts of information and shit.

They also usually are the heads of car-jacking and fencing rings. They hide behind the blacks. It's easier to pin shit on a blackman.

BLACK GANGS
Gangsterism in its true sense is not that big in the black community. You seldom cases a gang goes out of its way to attack another. This however does not mean you will not get your shit ruined - because you sure as fuck will.
This is a heavily-armed section of population, hardened to violence by the previous government system. These are people who grew seeing their friends and family suffer. The previous government created a situation where violence was part of the black man's daily existence. So the ones who have chosen to live by the gun, are hard fuckers.
Look at a person wrong at a party - you are very likely to get an AK up your ass. Ask someone's girl out and it's curtains for you. Work for a cash-in-transit firm and you're getting jacked by 8 AK-wielding Mandrax zombies.
Jacking - now that's a favourite Johannesburg past-time. Your Beemer is gonna get jacked. The cops who chase after the highjackers are gonna get their shit ruined.

In the black community gangsterism is usually about making money. Dudes, leave their houses every evening to make money. They don't really care about protecting petty shit like teritory. They just want to feed their families. You find heavy dudes from different crews hanging together at parties and concerts, without much beef, as long ass you don't take food out my kid's mouth. Well, they get along until some idiot makes a joke about someone's girl, car, shoes, watch etc. Then you hear more gunshots than you would at an Iraqi independance day rally.

All things said Johannesburg is fun. Just try and not get high-jacked or hit by several AK stray bullets during a cash-in-transit heist. Those heists make movies like heat seem lame.

[Kemosave]

The trend right now is a diminishing white poplulation in South Africa. Their numbers are going down as they migrate away. Whole families are just picking up and leaving. It will be interesting to see how it all turns out in the end.

[silume]

The trend you refer to is a thing of the past. Most white people have come to terms with the fact that they live in an African country run by black people. They've come to realise that if they contribute and do their bit to help the country move forward, they have more to gain than lose.
In fact, a lot of the South Africans who left are coming back.

South Africa, as a country, is moving forward at an incredible rate. Even foreigners, like Will Smith, own property in South Africa.

The crime thing is just a thorn that's slowly being filed away.

[Kemosave]

The numbers of "White flight" from South Africa have dipped sure as this article and you point out: [img]http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=&click_id=79&art_id=vn20050601104912766C112330[/img]

And they do have a sizable population of white people still. [img]http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/sf.html[/img]

However, it is important to note that:

1. Poor whites are rapidly growing among those who remain [img]http://uk.news.yahoo.com/041210/325/f8agu.html[/img]

2. They are still leaving but yes in very diminished numbers comparatively.

Also the ones remaining, from what I am reading, have become very security conscious.

Anyway, thank you for pointing that out. I had not realized the numbers immigrating out of South Africa had diminished as much as they have in the past couple of years.

I don't really have an opinion on the issue either way. I suppose people in South Africa, regardless of color, are doing what they believe benefits them the most. Peace.[/img]

[silume]

The increase in the number of white who are impoverished means that the scales are slowly balancing. South Africa is a third world country and it can't just be the blacks who experience that.

The previous government shielded white people, and now that that shield is gone reality is hitting home.

At the other end of the scale, the black middle class is rapidly growing.

White people who are security concious have every reason to be. In South Africa you have a situation of have living alongside have-nots. The haves happen to be white and the have-nots black.

The black have-not feel that they don't have because the whites took from them what was theirs, and those who turn to crime feel no remorse taking from white people.

It's a sad situation but it is one that was created a long time ago and will take a long time to sort out.

[Kemosave]

Now that sounded like a very intelligent post to me. No evidence brought to support the author's assertions but it the argument; however, the position seems right on from everything I have read.

[greenwood104]

i heard theres more car jackings in south africa than any other country

[Jakk]

The 4 Major gangs in the hole of S. Africa
The Amerians, 28's, 26's, Hard Living

Other smaller gangs
Forty Thieves, Desperadoes, Spy 13, Fast Eleven, Flick Styles, Boek 30's, Shy Boys, Fast Twelve, Black Power

[phenomenom]

I bet Bloods and Crips would run Cape Town.

actually there sum crips frum south africa



The Apology
Twenty-five years ago when I created the Crips youth gang with Raymond Lee Washington in South Central Los Angeles, I never imagined Crips membership would one day spread throughout California, would spread to much of the rest of the nation and to cities in South Africa, where Crips copycat gangs have formed. I also didn't expect the Crips to end up ruining the lives of so many young people, especially young black men who have hurt other young black men.
Raymond was murdered in 1979. But if he were here, I believe he would be as troubled as I am by the Crips legacy.

So today I apologize to you all -- the children of America and South Africa -- who must cope every day with dangerous street gangs. I no longer participate in the so-called gangster lifestyle, and I deeply regret that I ever did.

As a contribution to the struggle to end child-on-child brutality and black-on-black brutality, I have written the Tookie Speaks Out Against Gang Violence children's book series. My goal is to reach as many young minds as possible to warn you about the perils of a gang lifestyle.

I am no longer "dys-educated" (disease educated). I am no longer part of the problem. Thanks to the Almighty, I am no longer sleepwalking through life.

I pray that one day my apology will be accepted. I also pray that your suffering, caused by gang violence, will soon come to an end as more gang members wake up and stop hurting themselves and others.

I vow to spend the rest of my life working toward solutions.

Amani (Peace),

[CrimeStart]

Thugs milk desperate refugees
By Munyaradzi Makoni

Refugees queuing on the Foreshore in Cape Town for the home affairs bus that takes them to the Barrack Street offices for their asylum applications to be processed are being terrorised by thugs who demand cash for positions at the front of the queue.

About 20 young men ranging in age from 19 to 27 have been coercing asylum-seekers at the back of the long queues to pay for one of the 30 prime positions at the front.

"You have to choose to stay and rot in the queue or you get on the bus, which is a passport to get your papers," said a dreadlocked member of the gang, who was identified only as Dread.

Another member, known as Mafia for his readiness to pull a knife when challenged, said: "This is what we call the real deal. If you can't talk, tough luck. It's you who is suffering, not me."

The gang members, who themselves are refugees and have temporary asylum permits, charge between R50 and R700, depending on where you want to be in the queue.

The closer to the front, the higher the fee.

Openly bragging about their corrupt activities, members of the gang patrol the queue, ensuring that those who have paid are not disturbed until they are on the bus.

The gang demands cash. It is understood that they have turned down offers of cellphones and watches from desperate asylum-seekers.

On two occasions two of the gang members patrolling the queue, one brandishing a knife and the other a short-handled axe, threatened to "cut to pieces" anyone who dared challenge them.

Openly smoking dagga and drinking, the self-appointed queue marshals have gained notoriety for being violent and dangerous.

"This is our workplace and we are in charge here," said one youth, identified only as Trust.

"No one can deal with us because we can deal with everyone."

The gang members were seen at work during the night and early hours of Wednesday and Thursday last week.

But asylum-seekers camping on the Foreshore as they wait to secure permits say the intimidation and extortion have been going on for almost two months.

Zimbabwean asylum-seeker Zvikomborero Muza said it was a "sad reality" that the gangsters had gained their asylum permits long ago but had turned to extortion as an easy way of making money.

"Home affairs has been kind to allocate us this area, but we don't want it to evolve into a crime zone where drugs, violence and corruption are brewed," said Muza.

An elderly woman, who did not want to be named for fear of reprisals, said it was being claimed that the gangsters were denying their own "mothers, brothers and sisters" a life.

"The situation is already distressing," she said. "We are appealing to the police and immigration officials to weed out these youths. They are bent on causing chaos. (The authorities) should simply consider deporting them."

Home affairs spokesperson Siobhan McCarthy said the department was in the process introducing queue managers who would have the dual role of preventing extortion and of informing refugees of the days on which specific nationalities would be assisted. - West Cape News

[Jinky08]

So is The Numbers gang a street gang, or do all gangs fall under the Numbers when thhey hit the prison system ? could someone explain this to me

[Sentenza]

So is The Numbers gang a street gang, or do all gangs fall under the Numbers when thhey hit the prison system ? could someone explain this to me

In that doc, he said, that the Numbers gang is a prison gang that started to spread onto the streets after members of it were released.