Inside KZN's hitmen-for-hire industry

The cost of a professional hit generally ranges from about R10,000 to R500,000, and the contract on Kiernan Forbes, better known as rap star AKA, was probably about R250,000, according to a taxi boss with personal knowledge of the facilitation of hired killers.

He said R10,000 was for “an ordinary person who has no bodyguards”.

“The more dangerous you are, the more costly the services. It can go all the way to R500,000 or even a million, depending on how dangerous the person is,” he said. “Some assassinations are so complex they can take six months to execute. If you want to kill someone who has a lot of bodyguards, that hit cannot be done in just a few weeks.”

The use of izinkabi — a Zulu term for hitmen — has become a talking point countrywide after Forbes's murder in Florida Road, Durban, last week. Two men opened fire on him on February 10, killing him and his producer Tebello Motsoane.

Forbes was the third musician to be assassinated in the past four months, after Oupa John Sefoka, popularly known as DJ Sumbody, in November and Tshwane music producer and DJ Itumeleng “Vusi Ma R5” Mosoeu in January.

“He was a popular musician who was always with people,” the taxi boss said. “You need someone to drive the getaway car. You need someone who will be where AKA is, giving you details about what he is doing. Then you need the hitman to pull the trigger.”

He said the men who killed AKA and his friend were experienced.

“They shot the two people in the presence of many. An amateur would not be able to do that. These are serious hitmen. Obviously there was another man with them waiting in the getaway car,” he said.

He said he strongly suspected that those in the assassination industry in KwaZulu-Natal know who killed Forbes because “they operate as a network”.

He said a hitman's priority was to get as much information about the target as possible “to eliminate the risk of dying themselves while executing the hit”.

Some hitmen had gone on to open security companies which they used as fronts.

“Even with formal businesses, they do not leave the industry because it is lucrative. Politicians and business people also use it to eliminate their rivals. Politicians use the same hitmen as those used in the taxi industry. It's the same network of people,” he said.

They shot the two people in the presence of people. An amateur would not be able to do that. These are serious hitmen. Obviously there was another man with them waiting in the getaway car

KwaZulu-Natal has developed a nursery of contract killers — faceless young men groomed by some within the taxi industry to eliminate threats to seats of power, dodgy business deals and lucrative routes.

In-depth studies by Switzerland-based Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime (GI-TOC) into contract killings show that KwaZulu-Natal has by far the most.

KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi said they had no doubt Forbes's murder was a hit.

Mark Shaw, GI-TOC director and author of Hitmen for Hire, told the Sunday Times that South Africa’s biggest cohort of hitmen are linked to the taxi industry, and are recruited mainly in northern KwaZulu-Natal.

“There is evidence of former military and police [becoming hitmen] but they are not in the majority. Practised killers from gangs all over the country, but mainly the Western Cape, are definitely present.”

Hitmen are groomed from an early age, especially in the taxi industry. They are called ‘stateless kids’ because they have no records on file - no birth certificates, no IDs and certainly no online profiles

—  Nathi Olifant, author

According to GI-TOC data, 1,822 assassinations were recorded between 2000 and 2020, of which 858 occurred between 2015 and 2020.

Nathi Olifant, author of Blood, Blades and Bullets: Anatomy of a Glebelands Hitman and The Fugitives, a Glebelands hitmen crime thriller, delved into assassin culture, including interviewing alleged hitmen as part of his research.

Olifant said the spike in contract killings in KwaZulu-Natal is being fuelled by “readily available guns, lack of successful prosecution as a deterrent, rivalry in the taxi industry and political position scrambles at a local level”.

He said the hitmen-for-hire industry, particularly in KwaZulu-Natal, is well-established and an easy way for young recruits from rural areas like Nongoma, Msinga, Bergville, Weenen and Harding — where it is harder for police to find them —  to make quick money.

“Hitmen are groomed from an early age, especially by those in the taxi industry. They are called ‘stateless kids’ because they have no records on file — no birth certificates, no IDs and certainly no online profile.”

Olifant said a hitman may be paid between R20,000 and R40,000 to kill a councillor or  politician.

“To kill a taxi boss or a high-ranking businessman, the person issuing a bounty may have to cough up R100,000 and more. With the latter you need a skilled, professional and experienced hitman.”

GI-TOC’s latest strategic organised crime risk assessment report says “the lack of regulation in the minibus-taxi industry has given rise to intense competition between associations over routes that has frequently erupted into violent conflict, as well as driving power struggles both between and within associations”.

This, according to the report, has driven the emergence of a class of professional hitmen who are used to kill rival taxi bosses, taxi drivers and members of taxi association committees, as well as to protect or contest lucrative taxi routes and ranks.

— Additional reporting Mfundo Mkhize