Spy games and dirty tricks abound in Africa's tobacco industry

Warning. Smoking kills. It also corrupts law-enforcement officials and eviscerates state institutions.

It devours politicians, professionals, business people and ordinary workers in the chase for big bucks and the battle for a slice of an ever-shrinking cigarette market.

Join one of South Africa’s former tax sleuths, Johann van Loggerenberg, in a wild ride through the double-dealing world of tobacco’s colourful characters and ruthless corporates.

Meet the femme fatales, mavericks, mercenaries and grandmasters, and learn how the crime-busting unit led by Van Loggerenberg at SARS and its ‘Project Honey Badger’ became a victim of a war between industry players and a high-stakes political game driven by state capture.

This is the tale of a few good men and women who dared to try to hold to account a billion-dollar international industry rife with espionage, private spy networks, tax evasion, collusion and corruption – ultimately at great cost to themselves and South Africa.

‘From this book you learn that big tobacco companies and their smaller competitors have manipulated and controlled parts of the state with help from accomplices within – and are probably continuing to do so.’
- Ivan Pillay

‘… should be prescribed reading material for lawmakers, civil servants, regulators, civil society organisations and the media, as well as alert citizens.’
- Sikonathi Mantshatsha

About the author

Johann van Loggerenberg is the author of Death and Taxes and co-author, with Adrian Lackay, of the bestselling Rogue: The Inside Story of SARS’s Elite Crime-busting Unit. He joined SARS in 1998 and ultimately led some of its investigations units until he resigned in 2015 when he became a target with former SARS boss Ivan Pillay and others of various plots to capture and disable the revenue service. Today Van Loggerenberg is a private tax practitioner and advisory consultant.

• Article provided by NB Publishers