'Running a business like this is not easy," said Simon (not his real name). "You need to make sure the work comes in and that people pay you."
Let me give you the story of my meeting with Simon, described as a prominent killer for the taxi industry in Gauteng. Getting to Simon had been a tough assignment. I had nagged my contact for weeks to find out whether their contact had a contact who could get me in front of someone like Simon.
Eventually things began to fall into place. Simon had agreed to talk, but with certain conditions. Basically, he would not discuss individual cases and he insisted I should do nothing to identify where he could be found. There could be no filming or recording of the interview — I would need to be searched first to prevent that. Fair enough, I thought, if that's what it took.
To keep it vague, Simon is based in a large hostel complex in a township in the greater Johannesburg area. It's a bustling place, with people coming and going. The meeting was to be carefully choreographed. We made a phone call near the entrance and then we waited.After some time, two men emerged and signalled to my intermediary and me. One was old and scrawny, the other squat and powerfully built. After brief introductions I was banished to my car while a discussion ensued about the boundaries for the interview. Then a younger man appeared from behind a pavement restaurant where scores of chickens were sizzling over a braai. I was summoned back. We had bought one of the chickens, and, standing in a group, we shared the bird, breaking the meat off with our hands and dipping it in sauce. Not a word was spoken.
With a wave of his hand, the newly arrived young man summoned me to follow him. He must have been observing the proceedings from afar because he walked knowingly towards my car as I followed. We climbed in and he directed me to drive through the neighbourhood, as he kept a careful eye on the wing mirror to see whether we were being followed. Eventually he settled on a place for the discussion to take place — an empty piece of land near a railway line.
Thus, with the sound of crowded passenger trains thundering past, we began to explore Simon's life and what his job meant to him.
The market in which izinkabi — the colloquial name for a hitman in Zulu — operate is competitive, he explained, and one of the more common and irksome requests from clients is for professional hitmen, like Simon, to prove they have actually completed the work. Finished the job, literally. I had also had this from others.The problem is, many customers have been defrauded. In several cases, hitmen would tell their prey to disappear — threatening that otherwise they would have to kill them. The hitmen then claimed to their clients that it's just a job, and they would claim their fee. So, it's now become fairly standard practice for customers to send an emissary to make sure that the job has been done as per the order.
No witnesses
Simon said he would prefer that there were no witnesses; he does not like people hanging around his workplace. But that's the system: a witness has to be there to confirm that the deed has been done. That's how it works. This is business, after all. Simon did not want to be described, but let's just say he wouldn't stand out in a crowd. He is probably in about his late 30s, and looks young and fit. He wore expensive running shoes without socks, chinos, and a well-cut shirt that matched his shoes. He squatted down under a tree, rocking back and forth on his haunches as I tried to get him to talk.
Slowly, Simon opened up, but in a guarded sort of way. He originates from KwaZulu-Natal. From a tough town, by the sound of things. "You grow up with a lot of killing there." It's where he first learnt his craft and became connected to people with interests in the taxi industry. It's not something that he was keen to discuss, though. The talk was laboured, each point being extracted detail by painful detail. But, as with many conversations about business, talking money is a useful way to get things started."Pricing a hit is a measure — like water in a cup," said Simon. It really depends on who is to be killed. I am summarising here, but there are two basic criteria: status and difficulty. The two are interlinked. Higher status means that you might get the police after you more intensively than normal — political pressure, that sort of thing. Or, worse — far worse, it seems — you get the hitmen from some other "warlord" on your tail.
Sometimes there are hitmen who watch hitmen," explained Simon. "It can get complex." Those with the real money are prepared to pay to make sure that the killing is as far removed as possible from them. In this game, hitmen both target the victim and are targeted themselves.
Strictly cash
Payment is strictly in cash and negotiated in advance. Small jobs are cheap: anything from R5,000 upwards. "Big targets", like a taxi boss, are likely to be expensive. "A taxi owner is about R20,000. A real taxi boss or a high-profile person is something like R150,000 or more." For big hits, there is often an initial discussion and some planning. The difficulty will be talked about for a bit. Information on the person's movements is presented. That sort of detail is usually conveyed by the person ordering up the hit. They may have been observing the target, or may know him. In most cases, a person who has collected these details will also act as the witness to make sure the job is done properly.
Simon implied that a lot of innuendo is used when talking about a hit — no names, just a reference to "removing" someone. This roundabout way of talking is not out of fear of surveillance or police informers, but, said Simon, because it is just easier to discuss someone else's death like that. Hitmen are human too. It's unseemly to talk about killing too directly. How does he salve his conscience? With alcohol, for a start: whisky is his favourite. He needs to do this, he said, in the same way that people with different jobs do other things to get their mind off work. It's just that, he emphasised: a job.
And, as with all jobs worth the pay, reputation is the key to his business. Reputation is a measure of how many successful hits you have done, and their level of difficulty. Being known to have taken out three taxi heavies gives a hitman a highly marketable reputation. "Your cellphone rings", is how business-conscious Simon describes it. But this is a fragile business, he emphasised. "Hitmen don't live long. They know too much and they are in danger when doing the job. But the money is good and I now can't do anything else."
In the end, it all seems to be about money. "Hitmen have been known to kill the very people they are supposed to be protecting," he said. "I wouldn't do that. But it happens." Hits are simply a matter of negotiation, and payment, Simon emphasised. Hitmen who have learnt the trade in the taxi business are those who tend to do most of the work outside of it. That's a common story and says a lot about how mafia violence with origins in the taxi industry has had wider implications for South African society...