Latest news with #28s
IOL News
16-07-2025
- IOL News
Cape Town banker insists he's innocent amid R18 million cocaine bust
Senior bank manager Raed Cupido. Image: Supplied A Westridge man-turned-big-shot banker says he's not a drug dealer, but a family man, soccer coach and businessman who's being framed in a R18 million cocaine bust case. Raed Cupido, 40, was back in the Cape Town Magistrates Court on Tuesday in a bid to apply for bail after a failed attempt to have the magistrate kicked off his case. He was busted on June 10, at a storage unit in Roeland Street, where cops allegedly found 15 bricks of cocaine, an AK-47, five 9mm pistols and a stash of ammunition. The court previously heard that Cupido was pressured by a cop and former employee of alleged 28s gang boss Ralph Stanfield and his wife Nicole Johnson into saying that the drugs were theirs in exchange for his freedom. Cupido, who has been suspended from his senior marketing executive job at Standard Bank since his arrest, says he grew up in Westridge, Mitchells Plain, but built his life through hard work. The accused, who earns approximately R78 000-a-month, previously worked at British American Tobacco Group, Woolworths and Phillip Morris Group where he worked as a commercial planning and development manager and flew across the world in this job. He also owns RADC Transport, a fleet company with 17 vehicles that earns R160 000 per month, and owns properties including in Rondebosch, Claremont and Green Point, valued at over R20 million. The accused states in his application that he is a family man who is married to a conveyance attorney and have two minor children, however, since he has been in prison their family trip to France was cancelled. Cupido states he is a well-respected soccer coach within the community and due to conditions at Pollsmoor prison being overcrowded and damaging to his health, he is appealing to be released on bail. He added that he has no previous convictions, pending matters, outstanding warrants, and is not a flight risk or danger to society. Meanwhile, co-accused Christopher Carelse who was arrested on 13 July, a manager at Shell Downstream SA said he was not present at the storage unit when the alleged drugs, firearms and ammunition was found. The court documents reads: 'I deny having any knowledge or involvement in the commission of this crime. I was arrested one month after the alleged discovery was made by the police." Cape Argus
IOL News
16-07-2025
- IOL News
Pollsmoor is risk to my health, says suspended Standard Bank manager in R18 million cocaine bust case
FAMILY MAN Senior bank manager Raed Cupido Image: Supplied THE suspended Standard Bank marketing manager has cited the overcrowding in Pollsmoor as among the reasons he should be released on bail as these conditions posed a risk to his health. Raed Cupido, 40 maintained that he was not a drug dealer, but a family man, soccer coach and businessman who's being framed in a R18 million cocaine bust case. He was back in the Cape Town Magistrates Court on Tuesday to apply for bail after a failed attempt to have the presiding magistrate recused. Cupido was arrested on June 10 at a storage unit in Roeland Street, where police allegedly found 15 bricks of cocaine, an AK-47, five 9mm pistols and a stash of ammunition. The court previously heard that Cupido was pressured by an officer and former employee of alleged 28s gang boss Ralph Stanfield and his wife Nicole Johnson into admitting that the drugs were theirs in exchange for his freedom. Cupido, who has been suspended from his senior marketing executive job at Standard Bank since his arrest, grew up in Westridge, Mitchells Plain, but built his life through hard work. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Next Stay Close ✕ The accused, who earns approximately R78 000-a-month, previously worked at British American Tobacco Group, Woolworths and Phillip Morris Group where he was employed as a commercial planning and development manager and flew across the world in this job. He also owns RADC Transport, a fleet company with 17 vehicles that earns R160 000 per month. He also owns properties in Rondebosch, Claremont and Green Point valued at over R20 million. The accused states in his application that he is a family man who is married to a conveyance attorney and has two minor children. However, since he has been arrested, their family trip to France was cancelled. Cupido states he is a well-respected soccer coach within the community and due to conditions at Pollsmoor prison being overcrowded and damaging to his health, he is appealing to be released on bail. He added that he has no previous convictions, pending matters, outstanding warrants, and is not a flight risk or danger to society. Meanwhile, co-accused Christopher Carelse who was arrested on 13 July, a manager at Shell Downstream SA said he was not present at the storage unit when the alleged drugs, firearms and ammunition was found. The court documents read: 'I deny having any knowledge or involvement in the commission of this crime. I was arrested one month after the alleged discovery was made by the police." Cape Times
IOL News
14-07-2025
- IOL News
Alleged 28s boss Ralph Stanfield and co-accused face high court trial for Rashied Staggie's murder
Alleged 28s gang kingpin, Ralph Stanfield. Image: File The alleged leader of the 28s gang, Ralph Stanfield and his co-accused appear in the Cape Town Magistrate's Court on Monday, where it was revealed the group will be heading to face trial in the Western Cape High Court. Stanfield, his wife, Nicole Johnson, and 12 others face an array of charges in what is expected to be an explosive trial to hit the high court. The accused include: Johannes Abrahams, Denver Booysen, Jose Brandt, Jonathan Cloete, Shakeel Pelston, Imtyaas Sedick, Warren-Lee Dennis, Michael Morris, Chevonne McNab, Sharaxaadt Essop, Brandon Cornelius, and Keathan Gardiner. The other accused, Abraham Wilson, has since died. Alleged hitman Abraham Wilson has since died Image: File Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Next Stay Close ✕ The group face 41 charges, including murder, attempted murder, fraud, illegal possession of firearms, illegal possession of ammunition, robbery, and theft of a motor vehicle. In an indictment handed over to the court, the group are alleged to have conspired and murdered Hard Livings (HL) gang boss Rashied Staggie in a hail of bullets on December 13, 2019, in London Road, Salt River. At the time, the 28s and HLs were embroiled in a hectic turf war. Hard Livings boss Rashied Staggie was gunned down in Salt River Image: File Staggie was killed on the same spot where his twin brother, Rashaad was shot and set alight in August 1996. The murder charges also relate to the late City of Cape Town employee Wendy Kloppers. Kloppers, 49, who worked for the City's Environmental Affairs Department, was gunned down on February 16, 2023, in Delft. Wendy Kloppers was gunned down in February 2023. Image: File The murder of 27s gang leader, William 'Red' Stevens, who was gunned down in February 2021, in Kraaifontein has also been listed among the charges. In its indicted handed over to the court, the State is set to prove that the group acted and are active members of a criminal gang known as 'The Firm' operating in Bishop Lavis, Valhalla Park, Delft, and Mitchells Plain and hold positions of leadership and subservience in accordance with the ranking system of the 28s prison gang. The indictment names Stanfield as the leader. Leader of 27s, William 'Red' Stevens, was gunned down. Image: File The Firm opposes and fights against members of the 27s prison gang, HLs, Dixie Boys, Sexy Boys, and Ghetto Kids operating in Kraaifontein, Woodstock, Parow, Bellville, Belhar, and Eerste River. The Western Cape spokesperson for the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), Eric Ntabazalila, confirmed the matter has been transferred to the high court. The matter has since been postponed until November 7, 2025, for pre-trial. IOL
Daily Maverick
13-06-2025
- Daily Maverick
Murdered Andre Naude's own words — ‘I've got a gun on my waist and a bulletproof car'
Cape Town murder plot accused Andre Naude operated among several individuals who were suspected of crimes — and who went on to be assassinated. He previously claimed this arena was 'not cowboys and crooks', but his own murder now suggests otherwise. About 13 years ago a burly man sat in a restaurant just outside Cape Town's city centre — he faced the entry points of the establishment as a security measure to watch who approached it. Facing the windows and doors, this man, Andre Naude, spoke about how he and some associates, including his close ally Mark Lifman, were involved in a new security operation focused on nightclubs. 'We're not part of any underworld gangs,' Naude claimed at the time. 'We run a clean operation.' 'I've got a gun on my waist' Naude also said that certain individuals, who believed nightclub security could be dominated through eliminating rivals in the industry, put him at risk. 'It's because of people like… (that) that I've got a security guard outside my house, a gun on my waist and a bulletproof car,' he claimed. 'It's not cowboys and crooks any more.' But Naude's murder, on Thursday, 12 June 2025, suggests otherwise — that he operated with, and among, wannabe cowboys and very real crooks. Naude was gunned down and a second man wounded in a shooting in Cape Town's northern suburbs on Thursday afternoon. The police are investigating. While it was never proven and Naude was not convicted for it, there were suspicions he was involved with the 27s gang and that this angered the 28s gang, which is hellbent on dominating the Western Cape's internationally connected drug trade. There are also long-running suspicions that rogue intelligence agents with ties to politicians and police officers secretly direct gangsters, and that fights among these hidden figures spill over onto the streets and produce violence, including shootings, that plays out in public. Naude's killing comes about seven months after Lifman was assassinated in the Western Cape Town of George. At the time of their murders the duo, along with several other accused including their associate Jerome 'Donkie' Booysen, were on trial for the August 2017 assassination of international steroid smuggler Brian Wainstein, also known as the Steroid King. They denied involvement. Wainstein was suspected of being aligned to the 28s gang — and he and Lifman did not see eye to eye. Naude and Lifman are now among five accused in the Wainstein murder case to have been murdered. Merger after murder This journalist initially interviewed Naude in early 2012, the year after the assassination of organised crime suspect and rumoured apartheid state operative Cyril Beeka, who had dominated nightclub security operations in Cape Town's city centre. Beeka had run a security outfit in Cape Town in the 1990s, and some police officers maintained it was an extortion racket linked to the Italian Mafia. Police investigators had also accused Beeka of using mobs of men to force his 'security' services on establishments. Naude, during the 2012 interview at which a second journalist was also present, explained how certain bouncer operations were merged after Beeka's 2011 killing. That merger produced a security company that Hawks officers promptly shut down over allegations that it was not registered with the Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority. This culminated in Naude and Lifman facing criminal charges. They were later, in 2015, cleared in that case and countered that certain police officers had maliciously targeted them. A while after that saga, nightclub security issues in Cape Town started heating up again. Proxies and suicide bomb claims This led to me again meeting Naude for an interview in November 2016 at another restaurant outside Cape Town's city centre. Naude had claimed an individual from another country — a proxy for an intelligence service of that country — was among those stoking issues in the city. (This individual does not seem to have been arrested in South Africa.) During that interview with Naude, a group of men was seated at a nearby table. Among them was Wainstein — who went on to be assassinated in 2017, a crime for which Naude was among those charged. In June 2017 I again interviewed Naude in person. He made stronger claims this time that the individual from another country — 'he's funded by terrorists' — was smuggling heroin into nightclubs and that suicide bombers would potentially target Cape Town. Naude claimed he had alerted certain police officers about this. While the name of the individual he referenced later cropped up on the periphery of related court issues, Naude's full claims could not be substantiated. At the end of that 2017 interview, Naude said he planned to meet Rashied Staggie, the former head of the Hard Livings gang, to discuss some issues. (Staggie was murdered in Cape Town two years later, in 2019, and 28s gang boss suspect Ralph Stanfield is now accused in connection with that killing.) 'Rivals' Daily Maverick has before reported extensively on what happened in 2017 in relation to nightclub security in Cape Town. Suspected organised crime kingpin Nafiz Modack, who had known Cyril Beeka and seemed to have been aligned with him, allegedly tried to seize control of bouncer operations in the city from Naude, Lifman and their associates. According to police investigators and what surfaced in court cases, clashes between the so-called 'Modack group' and the 'Lifman group' sparked violence in Cape Town from 2017 onwards. Modack was arrested and then acquitted for security service-related matters. He was subsequently rearrested for other crimes and is now in custody and on trial for the murder of policeman Charl Kinnear in Cape Town in September 2020. Gangs and dead ends This journalist's book The Enforcers – Inside Cape Town's Deadly Nightclub Battles provides in-depth detail on how suspicions of criminality in bouncer operations have evolved. It also focuses on gangs, as well as several individuals who have since been murdered or accused of murder. A section references how there was an apparent rift between Jerome Booysen, who was previously accused of heading the Sexy Boys gang (he has not been convicted of this), and his brother Colin, which saw Colin aligning himself with Modack. According to The Enforcers: 'This manoeuvre is what apparently caused fractures within the Sexy Boys — if gangland folklore is to be believed, several members of the gang backed Colin Booysen, leaving Jerome Booysen and the Sexy Boys who stayed with him to pair up with the 27s gang. 'This, according to the unverified tale, is how the two nightclub security factions came to be aligned to two different gangs.' In simpler terms and while not verified, it appeared that Modack and Colin Booysen had Sexy Boys gang support, while their alleged rivals including Booysen and his associates had 27s gang ties. On top of that, Wainstein was viewed as having sided with the 28s gang, which angered the 27s. Somewhat reinforcing these theories is that among those also charged in connection with Wainstein's murder — alongside Naude, Lifman and Booysen — was William 'Red' Stevens, reputed to have been one of the most seasoned 27s gangsters in the Western Cape. In 2021, about a week before he was set to appear in court for the Wainstein murder case, Stevens was shot dead in the Cape Town suburb of Kraaifontein. This means a suspected 27s gang boss, who was facing charges for the murder of Wainstein who was believed to have paired up with the 28s gang, was killed. At face value, this implies deadly fighting between the two gangs — fighting that may persist. DM
TimesLIVE
04-06-2025
- General
- TimesLIVE
Western Cape gangs recruit 12-year-olds, fuelling rise in child murders
Children are also used as shooters, as impressionable youngsters keen to prove themselves are often more easily influenced to carry out acts of violence. 'Craven Engel, a pastor who runs Ceasefire, a gang violence prevention organisation, described a 12-year-old boy he had assisted, who had been recruited as a gunman for the Only the Family gang, as 'brainwashed to kill people',' the report reads. 'Many sources report that these younger gangs are in fact more reckless and aggressive than previous generations, as they are less familiar with the codes of conduct that — at times — regulate and control violence. This, in turn, has contributed to the higher rates of child murder, with children increasingly becoming both perpetrators and victims.' The report said another sign of rising child recruitment into gangs is the growing number of children getting into trouble with the law. Magistrates and court officials have noticed more children being charged with gang-related crimes, such as drug possession, murder, attempted murder, robbery, sexual offences, and assault. The GI-TOC also reported that feared alleged 28s street gang boss Ralph Stanfield had been inducted into the prison gang. According to the report, Stanfield, arrested in 2023 on multiple charges, used his reputation to quickly enter the 28s prison gang — a rare achievement in South African prisons. Charges against Stanfield and his wife, Nicole, in a R1bn Cape Town housing corruption case were recently provisionally withdrawn. 'During his incarceration, he has managed to bypass the customary years-long progression through the hierarchical structure of the Numbers, one of the world's oldest prison gang cultures, to become an ndota [member of a prison gang],' the report reads.
