Two die in Cape Town's gangsta paradise

Two men thought to be gang leaders were killed within minutes of each other in separate shootings in Cape Town on Wednesday night.

Police said two men were shot dead in their vehicle in a parking area at Pinelands shopping centre. One of them is believed to have been Marwaan Desai, allegedly leader of The Nice Time Kids.

"Two men fled the scene in a white Hyundai Tucson," said police spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Andre Traut.

Five minutes earlier, a 23-year-old, thought to be the gang leader known as "Bassier", was killed in Bontheuwel, east of Pinelands.

A spate of recent shootings in Cape Town is thought to be related to a turf war being waged between drug dealers on the Cape Flats.

The Sunday Times reported last month that security experts believed there was a link between increasing violence on the flats and competition for security contracts at nightclubs in the city.

Suspected gang boss Jerome "Donkie" Booysen was shot in the neck following two shooting incidents outside nightclubs in Camps Bay and the CBD.

On Friday last week a man believed to be 30-year-old Mario Swarts, whom the Sunday Times interviewed in May, was killed in Elsies River. Swarts had told the Sunday Times that he was a member of The Bad Boys. He was said to be the gang's assassin.

CCTV footage from a shop near the suspected hideout of The Bad Boys gang, on Twelfth Avenue, Leonsdale, shows Swarts being shot repeatedly at point-blank range.

Sources say the police are on the alert for revenge attacks.