The Enforcers: Inside Cape Town's Deadly Nightclub Battles

Written by Caryn Dolley

Narrated by Ashley Dowds

CAPE TOWN’S POPULAR high-end night spots attract an array of clientele, from young partygoers to politicians, models to moguls. In parallel with this is a sleazy underworld where control of the lucrative nightclub-security scene is the ultimate prize, for which some are prepared to pay using extortion and murder as the main currencies.

 

South Africa’s private-security sector is massive, an informal police force increasingly relied on as confidence in traditional policing wanes. But it’s an industry tainted by ties to underworld figures and events.

 

The Mother City’s security turf wars have their roots in pre-democratic South Africa, and branch into Cape Flats gang battles raging since the 1990s. Dotting this landscape are colourful and contentious figures – Yuri ‘The Russian’ Ulianitski, nightclub-security kingpin and rumoured apartheid-state operative Cyril Beeka, convicted drug dealer Radovan Krejčíř, controversial businessman Nafiz Modack and Mark Lifman. Making surprise appearances are high-ranking police officers as well as prominent members of the ANC and government.

 

Journalist Caryn Dolley has interviewed numerous criminal and suspects, often putting herself in danger in pursuit of the truth. Here she weaves her research into a story that lays bare the reality of Cape Town’s nightclub-security wars: a vast network of information and misinformation in which innocent members of the public enjoying a night out inadvertently rub shoulders with some of the city’s most infamous criminals.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jonathan Ball Publishers
• Release date: Jan 31, 2024
• ISBN: 9781776194070

Caryn Dolley

CARYN DOLLEY is an investigative reporter at Amabhungane, and has spent more than a decade in journalism covering hard news, features, investigative pieces, court cases and topics ranging from regional to international issues. Before working for Amabhungane, she was an investigative reporter for News24, a reporter for the Weekend Argus and the Cape Times, and worked at the Sunday Times. Caryn has a diploma in journalism from Cape Peninsula University of Technology, and lives in Cape Town.