cover of episode South Africa's Rampaging Murder Rate: Gangs, Corruption and State Capture

South Africa's Rampaging Murder Rate: Gangs, Corruption and State Capture

2024/7/23
logo of podcast The Underworld Podcast

The Underworld Podcast

Chapters

South Africa's transition from apartheid to a democratic state in the 1990s was initially met with high hopes, but those dreams have since crumbled due to widespread corruption, gang violence, and state capture by elites. This chapter details the rise of a construction mafia, the murder of a city official, and the subsequent pursuit of justice, highlighting the deep-seated issues of corruption and violence that plague the nation.

Shownotes Transcript

When Nelson Mandela and the ANC delivered South Africa from Apartheid in the 90s, hopes were high that the country could become a beacon of freedom and fairness. A generation later, those dreams lie in tatters. Elites have plundered state coffers to the tune of billions, mines have been taken over by illegal “chancers,” and the ghettoes of South Africa’s largest city, Cape Town, are suffering levels of violence unseen since segregation.

Left with few opportunities, corrupt cops and hundreds of gangs, locals have turned to private security firms, the country’s new boom trade. Others have thrown up roadblocks and christened whip-wielding vigilante groups, as the country descends into ever more hellish levels of organized crime.

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