 | |
| Type | Vigilante group |
|---|---|
| Legal status | Active |
| Location | |
Region served | Africa |
| Website | www |
People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (PAGAD) is a group formed in 1996 in the Cape Flats area of Cape Town, South Africa. The organisation came to prominence for acts against gangsters, including arson and murder.
PAGAD was founded by a handful of Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC) and community members from a Cape Town townships who decided to organize public demonstrations to pressure the government to fight the illegal drug trade and gangsterism more effectively. [1] : 11 [2] However, PAGAD increasingly took matters into their own hands, believing the police were not taking enough action against gangs. [3] Initially the community and police were hesitant to act against PAGAD activities, recognising the need for community action against crime in the gang-ridden communities of the Cape Flats. [2] [3]
Notorious gangsters were initially asked by PAGAD members to stop their criminal activities or be subject to "popular justice". A common PAGAD modus operandi was to set fire to drug dealers' houses and kill gangsters. [1] PAGAD's campaign came to prominence in 1996 when the leader of the Hard Livings gang, Rashaad Staggie, was beaten and burnt to death by a mob during a march to his home in Salt River. [4] South Africa's police quickly came to regard PAGAD as part of the problem rather than a partner in the fight against crime, and they were eventually designated a terrorist organization by the South African government. [2] [3] : 11
Changes within the organisation following the incidents of 1996 increased the influence of more highly politicised and organisationally experienced people within it associated with radical Islamic groups such as Qibla. This caused a series of changes such as the emergence of new leadership and the development of tighter organisational structures. This succeeded in transforming PAGAD from a relatively non-religious popular mass movement into a smaller, better organised but also a religiously radical isolated group. [2]
The threat of growing vigilantism in 2000 led the Western Cape provincial government to declare a "war on gangs" that became a key priority of the ANC provincial government at the time. [1] : 11
Although PAGAD's leadership denied involvement, PAGAD's G-Force, operating in small cells, was believed responsible for killing a large number of gang leaders, and also for a bout of urban terrorism—particularly bombings—in Cape Town. The bombings started in 1998, and included nine bombings in 2000. In addition to targeting gang leaders, bombing targets included South African authorities, synagogues, gay nightclubs, tourist attractions, and Western-associated restaurants. [5] The most prominent attack during this time was the bombing on 25 August 1998 of the Cape Town Planet Hollywood which resulted in two deaths and 26 injuries. [3]
In September 2000, magistrate Pieter Theron, who was presiding in a case involving PAGAD members, was murdered in a drive-by shooting. [6]
PAGAD's leaders have become known for making antisemitic statements. A 1997 incendiary bomb attack on a Jewish bookshop owner was found by police to have been committed with the same material PAGAD has used in other attacks. [7] In 1998, Ebrahim Moosa, a University of Cape Town academic who had been critical of PAGAD, decided to take a post in the United States after his home was bombed. [8]
Violent acts such as bombings in Cape Town subsided in 2002, and the police have not attributed any such acts to PAGAD since the November 2002 bombing of the Bishop Lavis offices of the Serious Crimes Unit in the Western Cape. In 2002, PAGAD leader Abdus Salaam Ebrahim was convicted of public violence and imprisoned for seven years. Although a number of other PAGAD members were arrested and convicted of related crimes, none were convicted of the Cape Town bombings.
Today, PAGAD maintains a small and less visible presence in the Cape Town Cape Muslim community.
In the run up to the 2014 South African general elections the organisation hosted motorcades and marches in Mitchell's Plain in February–March 2014. One of PAGAD's largest marches in 2014 was joined by the EFF, a far left political party who expressed their support for the organisation. [9] [10] [11] In 2022, a PAGAD G-Force leader was charged with conspiracy to kill police officers. [12] In 2023 a former PAGAD leader was gunned down. [13]
Vigilantism is the act of preventing, investigating, and punishing perceived offenses and crimes without legal authority.
A gang is a group or society of associates, friends, or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over territory in a community and engages, either individually or collectively, in illegal, and possibly violent, behavior, with such behavior often constituting a form of organized crime.
The Cape Flats is an expansive, low-lying, flat area situated to the southeast of the central business district of Cape Town. The Cape Flats is also the name of an administrative region of the City of Cape Town, which lies within the larger geographical area.
The Gangster Disciple Nation, also known as Growth & Development, is an African American street and prison gang founded by former rivals David Barksdale and Larry Hoover; in 1968, the two came together to form the Black Gangster Disciple Nation (BGDN).
South Africa is a Christian majority nation with Islam being a minority religion, practised by roughly 1.6% of the total population. Islam in South Africa has grown in three different phases. The first phase brought the earliest Muslims as part of the involuntary migration of slaves, artisans, political prisoners, and political exiles from the Dutch East Indies to the Cape Colony from 1652 to 1800. The second phase was the arrival of indentured labourers from British India to work in the sugar-cane fields in Natal from 1860 to 1911. Of the approximately 176,000 Indians of all faiths who were transported to the Natal province, almost 7–10% of the first shipment were Muslims.
A prison gang is an inmate organization that operates within a prison system. It has a corporate entity and exists into perpetuity. Its membership is restrictive, mutually exclusive, and often requires a lifetime commitment. Prison officials and others in law enforcement use the euphemism "security threat group". The purpose of this name is to remove any recognition or publicity that the term "gang" would connote when referring to people who have an interest in undermining the system.
Pollsmoor Prison, officially known as Pollsmoor Maximum Security Prison, is located in the Cape Town suburb of Tokai in South Africa. Pollsmoor is a maximum security penal facility that continues to hold some of South Africa's most dangerous criminals. Although the prison was designed with a maximum capacity of 4,336 offenders attended by a staff of 1,278, the current inmate population is over 7,000.
The Irish Mob is a usually crime family–based ethnic collective of organized crime syndicates composed of primarily ethnic Irish members which operate primarily in Ireland, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, and have been in existence since the early 19th century. Originating in Irish-American street gangs – famously first depicted in Herbert Asbury's 1927 book, The Gangs of New York – the Irish Mob has appeared in most major U.S. and Canadian cities, especially in the Northeast and the urban industrial Midwest, including Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Cleveland, and Chicago.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, African American organized crime emerged following the first and second large-scale migrations of African Americans from the Southern United States to major cities of the Northeast, Midwest, and later the West Coast. In many of these newly established communities and neighborhoods, criminal activities such as illegal gambling, speakeasies and were seen in the post-World War I and Prohibition eras. Although the majority of these businesses in African-American neighborhoods were operated by African Americans, it is often unclear the extent to which these operations were run independently of the larger criminal organizations of the time.
Albanian mafia or Albanian organized crime are the general terms used for criminal organizations based in Albania or composed of ethnic Albanians. Albanian organized crime is active in Europe, North America, South America, and various other parts of the world including the Middle East and Asia. The Albanian mafia participates in a diverse range of criminal enterprises including trafficking in drugs, arms, and humans. Due to their close ties with the 'Ndrangheta of Calabria, they control a large part of the billion dollar wholesale cocaine market in Europe and appear to be the primary distributors of cocaine in various European drug hubs including London. Albanian organized crime is characterized by diversified criminal enterprises which, in their complexity, demonstrate a very high criminal capacity. In Albania, there are over 15 mafia families that control organized crime.
Rashied Staggie was a South African gangster and leader of the Hard Livings gang. He was shot and killed in Salt River on 13 December 2019, in Cape Town, South Africa. His twin brother, Rashaad Staggie, the initial leader of the Hard Livings gang, was killed after being shot and burned alive in Salt River in 1996 by members of the vigilante group PAGAD. The Staggie brothers were killed in the same street, London Road.
Organised Crime and Gangs in Australia refers to the activities of various groups of crime families, organised crime syndicates or underworld activities including drug trafficking, contract killing, racketeering and other crimes in Australia.
Although organized crime has always existed in Sweden, it has risen significantly in the 2000s. The number of organized criminal groups operating in the country continues to rise. In 2018, Sweden had the highest gun deaths in total across Europe, and deaths involving guns tripled in Sweden between 2012 and 2020.
The Patriotic Alliance (PA) is a right-wing political party in South Africa, formed in November 2013 by, among others, businessmen Gayton McKenzie and Kenny Kunene. Since 2024, it is a part of the current South African government of national unity together with the African National Congress (ANC), the Democratic Alliance and other parties.
Indo-Canadian organized crime is made up predominantly of young adults and teenagers of Indian ethnic, cultural and linguistic background. Collectively, these groups are among the top 5 major homegrown organized crime hierarchy across the nation in Canada coming in 3rd place, after the Asian Triads and White biker gangs. The 2004 RCMP British Columbia Annual Police Report ranked them third in terms of organization and sophistication in British Columbia, ranked behind outlaw motorcycle clubs and aforementioned Chinese criminal organizations such as the Triads drug clans.
Westbury is a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa. It is located in the province of Gauteng. It is situated west of the Johannesburg CBD.
Criminal activity in Victoria, Australia is combated by the Victoria Police and the Victorian court system, while statistics about crime are managed by the Crime Statistics Agency. Modern Australian states and cities, including Victoria, have some of the lowest crime rates recorded globally with Australia ranked the 13th safest nation and Melbourne ranked the 5th safest city globally. As of September 2018 the CBD of Melbourne had the highest rate of overall criminal incidents in the state (15,949.9), followed by Latrobe (12,896.1) and Yarra (11,119.2). Rural areas have comparatively high crime rates, with towns such as Mildura (9,222.0) and Greater Shepparton (9,111.8) having some of the highest crime rates in the state.
The history of gangs in South Africa goes back to the Apartheid era.
Mogamad Nazier Paulsen is South African politician currently serving as a Member of the National Assembly for the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). Prior to serving parliament, he served as a Member of the Western Cape Provincial Parliament.
The Cape Organisation for the Democratic Taxi Association (Codeta), also sometimes called the Congress of Democratic Taxi Association(s) or Congress for Democratic Taxi Associations, is an umbrella body for minibus taxi operators in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Formed in 1992, it is one of the two major taxi associations in the Western Cape, and has frequently been embroiled in violent conflict with its primary competitor, the Cape Amalgamated Taxi Association (CATA), since the latter broke away from Codeta in the mid-1990s. Codeta, like CATA, is a member of the Western Cape provincial arm of the South African National Taxi Council.
| By province |  | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Political movements | |||||
| Trade unions and Social movements | |||||
| Law | |||||
| Political culture |
| ||||
| Other | |||||
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
