Rampant extortion of foreign-owned shops in Gqeberha: a worrying trend.

Immigrant ‘spaza’ shop owners protest in Gqeberha against killings of migrant shop owners, extortion and robberies of their stock, February 2021.

Photo: Mkhuseli Sizani via GroundUp

In February 2021, more than 200 shop owners from African diaspora communities in Gqeberha (formerly known as Port Elizabeth), in the Eastern Cape, took to the streets after four Somali shop owners were murdered in one week. They were protesting against extortion-related violence, claiming that local gangs were attacking and killing foreign shop owners who refused to pay protection money.

Following the protests, the Somali Ambassador to South Africa, Mohammed Ali Mire, met with South African Police Service (SAPS) leaders and local officials to discuss the killings.¹ Despite media statements by SAPS that the ‘meeting was very productive’ and that the SAPS’s ‘efforts in policing South Africa [are] about serving all people within [the country’s] borders’, less than two months later more than one hundred shop owners again closed their shops in protest against extortion targeting migrant shop owners in the city. The protesters marched to demand an increased police presence in response to the rising violence being meted out to Ethiopian and Somalian shop owners, and to draw attention to what they see as SAPS’s failure to investigate extortion syndicates.²

The latest spate of killings of Somali shop owners is not a new phenomenon, but rather the latest development in a trend of escalating extortion of foreign nationals plaguing the city over several years. Research by the GI-TOC also found similar trends in other areas such as Khayelitsha, Cape Town.

The state of play in Gqeberha

GI-TOC research team interviews with ‘spaza’ shop (local corner shop) owners in areas of Gqeberha (including Helenvale, Bethelsdorp, Missionvale and Beverly Hills) found that extortion-related violence has been on the rise since around late 2015. These areas of the city are affected by extraordinarily high levels of gang-related violence, with Gelvandale reporting homicide rates of 124 per 100 000, comparable to some of the most dangerous cities in the world.³

Although the main victims of extortion are migrant shop owners, local ‘shebeens’ (bars) and tavern owners, loan sharks, taxi drivers and construction contractors are also targeted. The extortion fees can reportedly amount to R3 000 (US$215) per month for a spaza shop or tavern, with payments collected weekly or even daily by gang members.

According to a community member interviewed by the GI-TOC, ‘those who don’t pay up are robbed, threatened, [have their] stock taken, vehicle windows damaged, house doors trampled down and … their entire shop looted’.⁴ The spaza shop owners in the February 2021 protests reported that vehicles belonging to shop owners had been hijacked when the owners returned from purchasing stock from wholesalers.⁵

These attacks are reportedly a common occurrence, with some business owners killed and some others forced to close after being unable to keep up with the demands for ‘protection’ fees from different sets of rival gangsters. The gangs offering ‘protection’ for a fee are the same gangs threatening and stealing from the shops. According to one shop owner, ‘the only people doing the actual robbing are the gangsters themselves’.

In April 2020, SAPS officers told migrant shop owners to remove their stock and leave the area ‘for their own safety’ after 25 shops were looted in the northern areas of the city.⁶ That month, 89 foreign-owned shops were forced to shut down by SAPS in a single week.

What makes foreign-owned shops vulnerable to extortion?

Limited employment opportunities for diaspora communities mean running spaza shops is a key way of making a living. Foreign shop owners often do not have bank accounts, meaning that cash is more likely to be kept on the premises.⁷

Xenophobic attitudes and related violence are a common occurrence not only in Gqeberha but throughout South Africa, and foreign-owned shops are often the target of xenophobic attacks. According to data reported by the African Diaspora Forum, an umbrella organization of associations representing different national migrant groups in South Africa, over 40 000 shops have been abandoned in the past 10 years due to fear of looting and violence.⁸

A driving force behind these attacks is that some South Africans view foreigners as competing for limited resources in a country marked by poverty and high rates of unemployment.⁹ Extortion groups have capitalized on these prejudices to target foreign shop owners.¹⁰

Shop owners will give away some of their stock to residents in an effort to keep looters at bay. Here, one resident catches a banana thrown by a Somali shopkeeper, September 2013.

Photo: Gallo Images/The Herald/Brian Witbooi

Extortion of spaza shops not only affects the shop owners but also the community members who rely on these shops to obtain their basic necessities. Spaza shops are predominantly found in parts of cities marked by high levels of unemployment, racial and economic marginalization and extreme poverty, and sell daily essentials in smaller quantities and at lower prices than supermarkets. They also often allow poor customers to purchase goods on credit without interest.

Given this important local role, spaza shops have a regular stream of customers, and extortionists therefore assume that owners can afford to pay extortion fees.¹¹ It also means that gang members can easily intimidate the spaza shop clientele so that they do not intervene or try to prevent extortion taking place, as they fear that they themselves will become the target of extortion and lose the little money they have.¹²

The emergence of an extortion economy

Gangs in Gqeberha have engaged in extortion for many years, yet it does not seem to have become a major source of gang income until approximately late 2015, after a member of the Spotbouers gang known as ‘De Grit’ was released from prison. The Spotbouers are feared throughout the city due to their use of violence, and are known for bringing illegal firearms into the area and hiring hitmen from Cape Town.¹³ According to local sources, De Grit began the trend of extorting foreign-owned businesses, taverns, spaza shops and taxi businesses. Other members of the Spotbouers and other local gangs soon followed suit.

According to spaza shop owners, at first many foreign-owned shops were looted by the gangs, while those who agreed to pay the approximately R2 000 (US$145) ‘protection fee’ were spared. These shop owners, with the prospect of worse living conditions in their home countries and determined to earn an income in South Africa, agreed to pay the fee. During 2016, word spread among shop owners that paying the extortion gangs was the best way to stay safe.¹⁴ With the market established, more gangs, such as the Don Dollos, 16 Honde, Hondekoppe, Roomrotte and Nice Time Bozzas, became involved in extortion.

By 2017 and into 2018, extorting businesses for ‘protection’ reportedly became one of the most important sources of income for local gangs.¹⁵ Extortion of foreign-owned businesses is seen as a lower-risk strategy than, for example, dealing in drugs, as any gang member could enter a shop, state the name of their gang and collect extortion money. The fear instilled by these gangs prevents any resistance, to the point where gang members reportedly do not need to be armed with a gun to demand payments.

‘So the fear gang members inflict upon the communities cause the community just to hand over [the money in the spaza shop],’ said one spaza shop owner, ‘even if there are ten people at the shop and one or two gang members robbing and coming to collect extortion money’.¹⁶

Although the majority of extortioners are reportedly local gang members, some interviewees said that some immigrants with links to local gangs have also begun to extort members of the community. ‘There’s also a foreigner by the name of Master. He’s like the kingpin of all foreign shop owners. Like a franchise owner. If any foreigners in any area want to open up a shop they must consult and get his approval first … Guys that don’t pay get killed by the gang Master recruits.’¹⁷ ‘Master’ reportedly has worked closely with local gangs such as 16 Honde and the Spotbouers.

Gqeberha following Khayelitsha’s trajectory?

Much like the areas extorted in Gqeberha, Khayelitsha, on the Cape Flats, is an informal township marked by high levels of unemployment and poverty. Although Khayelitsha was not always a township in which extortion thrived, since 2015 gangsters have increasingly demanded protection money from foreign traders, which many refused to pay.

Hundreds of shop owners, particularly Somalis, have been killed in extortion-related violence in Cape Town since 2015, mostly in their own shops trying to defend themselves. As in Gqeberha, Somali activists in Khayelitsha have argued that police do not investigate – and often even refused to investigate – cases of extortion-related killings against foreign business owners.¹⁸ The attacks were carried out by youngsters on the orders of senior gang members.

Figure 4 Somali shopkeepers killed in the Cape Town Metro area, 2012–2020.

SOURCE: Peter Gastrow, Lifting the veil on extortion in Cape Town, GI-TOC, April 2021, https://globalinitiative.net/wpcontent/uploads/2021/04/Lifting-the-veil-on-extortion-in-Cape-Town-GITOC.pdf

In 2017, this extortion-related violence escalated rapidly and at least 37 spaza shop owners were killed, according to the records of one undertaker who serves the Somali community.¹⁹ In order to reduce the violence, foreign shop owners entered into an arrangement with gangsters in which they agreed to pay protection fees every month, but in return the gangs had to protect the shop owners and locate stolen items.

A decline in the number of extortion-related murders in the township followed. However, another spike has been recorded in 2020 when gangs, after cementing their hold over foreign shop owners, turned to extort new victims – South African shop owners.²⁰ An eruption of violence that killed 12 people and injured seven others in May 2021 was reportedly sparked by competition between the rival Gupta and Boko Haram gangs over control of extortion in Khayelitsha.²¹

The recent trend of extortion killings in Gqeberha appears to mirror the developments in Khayelitsha during the years before 2017. Should Gqeberha gangs succeed in cementing their local power, they could then expand into extorting other businesses and ethnic groups, as has been seen in Khayelitsha in 2020. These gangs might also consider broadening their field of operations, as the Khayelitsha gangs did. A Somali community leader in Cape Town told the GI-TOC in December 2020: ‘The “deal” in Khayelitsha was struck in 2017 or 2018. After it was successful, [the gangs] moved further to Kraaifontein, where there was resistance but later on it became possible … The Khayelitsha gangsters went to the Eastern Cape and they signed in the Eastern Cape, but the Eastern Cape people are still resisting.’

GI-TOC research in Gqeberha has not been able to confirm or disprove suggestions that extortion gangs from the Western Cape have expanded to the Eastern Cape.²² However, local gangs in Gqeberha seem to be following a similar trajectory.

An under-represented and under-addressed problem

The victims of extortion are often unwilling to report it or proceed with formal criminal charges due to fear of retaliation and a lack of trust in police response. Foreign shop owners in both Gqeberha and Cape Town have repeatedly protested against the lack of support from police when reporting extortion,²³ which causes shop owners to hold back on reporting such incidents to the police.

Even when extortion is addressed in a formal criminal case, the SAPS system does not make provision for specifics like robbery at foreign-owned business or murder of a foreign national. This means that reliable statistics for rates of extortion and extortion-related violence aimed at migrant communities are hard to come by.²⁴

Between April 2020 and March 2021, no formal extortion cases were registered in Gelvandale, while only two cases of extortion were recorded in Bethelsdorp.²⁵ This belies the reality that extortion is rife in these and other areas in Gqeberha. Incidents of extortion have, however, been reported informally police via local ‘sector managers’ who act as conduits between communities and police. However sector managers have not regularly raised extortion as an issue of concern with police station management.²⁶

However, recent developments in Cape Town have been different. The Western Cape Extortion Steering Committee was established in 2020 to tackle extortion of businesses in the Cape Town Central Business District (CBD) and surrounding areas, following public protests against extortion by CBD businesses. Since then, 105 extortion cases have been opened in Cape Town, resulting in the arrests of 106 people, including police officers.

But although much focus has been placed on businesses being extorted in Cape Town – particularly in the wealthier CBD area – there does not seem to be a commensurate response to extortion in Gqeberha, despite the pervasiveness of the extortion problem.

Notes