TimesLIVE Investigations found South African kidnapping-for-ransom syndicates emerged after gaining experience from their Mozambican counterparts, who started the scourge.
Rupha Natha was going about his life at his spice shop in Newtown, Johannesburg, oblivious of the drama that was about to unfold. Suddenly, two men grabbed him and tried to drag him to a nearby vehicle.
Screaming for help, Natha clung onto a fruit stand at the entrance to his shop until a third burly man, armed with a handgun, bear-hugged him from behind, lifting him off the ground and bundling him into a getaway vehicle.
Within seconds he was gone. For 17 days in April last year, the Natha family’s world spun out of control as they searched for their kidnapped patriarch and owner of Rupa’s Food Packaging.
“I got a call from my mother and she told me what had happened. She received a call from one of the witnesses on the scene,” said Apesh Natha, Rupha’s son.
In the small, modest store at the edge of Newtown and Fordsburg, Apesh splits his attention between talking to TimesLIVE and assisting customers in search of spices and exotic beans.
“We did not know what was happening. It was a very scary ordeal,” he said.
In the moments after speaking to his mother, Apesh explained how he switched to autopilot mode as he battled to process what had just unfolded.
“For 17 days we did not know where my father was. That was a terrifying feeling.”
He said they received a call from his father’s kidnappers three days after he was taken.
For 17 days, we did not know where my father was. That was a terrifying feeling.
Apesh said the 17 days were defined by long bouts of silence from the abductors, calls and messages between family members and the police, and a series of near misses regarding his father’s location.
“To be honest, everyone was working hard to find the old man. These guys have a lot of safe houses. On a few occasions we would get a tip-off of where he might be, but when the police arrived at the said address he would have been moved,” he said.
He said the experience had instilled in the family heightened caution, scepticism and distrust.
“We can’t even trust anyone any more. These syndicates are well connected. I don’t want to say police are involved or not. My father does not know anything because he was kept in dark rooms, where he was guarded by two men. There is a massive network of syndicates behind these kidnappings.”
Though rattled by the ordeal, Apesh said his father had recovered from the incident and was undergoing therapy.
“I am glad he is a strong man. I don’t think we would have dealt with it the same (way he did). He knew how to handle himself.”
Though the initial trauma has subsided, the ramifications of the incident have become murky.
In November last year Col Thatia Moremi, former commander of the kidnapping task team based at Crime Intelligence (CI), was summonsed to appear in court for allegedly attempting to extort R40,000 from Rupha’s family.
He was back in court on Thursday, where he submitted representations explaining why he should not be prosecuted.
I am glad he is a strong man. I don't think we would have dealt with it the same (way he did). He knew how to handle himself.
— Apesh Natha
Moremi allegedly told the family he would “speed up the investigation for the safe return of the victim” in exchange for a fee.
Apesh, however, said he and his family have no knowledge of the allegations.
“We don’t know what is happening. We do not know anything about those allegations because when everything was unfolding a lot of things were happening that we were not aware of. We are just happy that our father was returned safely. That is all that we wanted.”
Natha, who was ransomed for R5m, was rescued in a police operation which saw officers arrest Jonathan Windwaai and Bradley Brits for the kidnapping.
Captain Xoli Mbele, Johannesburg Central Police Station spokesperson, said the duo was expected back in the Johannesburg magistrate’s court on Friday.
TimesLIVE has learnt that behind the scenes of Rupha’s kidnapping ordeal, and so many others like his which occur almost weekly in SA, a vicious battle for control of the kidnapping investigations is being fought.
The battle is for control of potentially lucrative investigations. It is waged by sections within the SAPS Crime Intelligence (CI) division, which is tasked to help national organised, serious and violent crimes detectives probe SA’s growing kidnapping scourge.
At the heart of the battle are CI’s counter-intelligence and multidimensional organised crime (MDOC) sections. MDOC controls the SAPS kidnapping task team, while counter-intelligence controls cellphone technology devices known as grabbers.
These are needed to track and trace cellphones used by kidnappers making ransom demands and liaising with their accomplices.
The war is being fought through private-investigator proxies who vie for lucrative business from desperate families paying handsomely for the safe return of their loved ones.
MDOC and counter-intelligence sources say as kidnappings continue unabated, with hostages’ lives increasingly endangered, both sides are waging bitter smear campaigns against each other to discredit seasoned officers “of the very sections who should be working hand in glove to stop SA’s deadly kidnapping war”.
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