The gangs of men in blankets

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The violence and crimes committed by gangs of men in blankets has not only spilled over into South Africa but also resulted in a slowly escalating blame-game between Lesotho and South Africa over the issues of cross-border crime.

In June last year South Africa’s Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, Gwede Mantashe, accused the Lesotho government of supporting illegal mining and causing economic sabotage in South Africa.

The gangs of men in blankets are at the centre of the rampant killings, gun violence, illegal mining in South Africa and the illicit trade of firearms.

These men generally fall into two major groupings of Terene and Seakhi. The two groups often distinguish themselves in terms of their regalia, most prominent of which is the blanket.

Terene members wear the gold and black blanket Seanamarena or Victorian blanket while Seakhi members wear Letlama of various colours often associated with a specific faction of their gangs. The blankets are often complemented with branded jerseys and hats.

Terene members often wear a yellow jersey with the word “Terene” or the slogan “Hae Tlale” embroidered on it. This is often complemented with a yellow hat with the same embroidery.
Seakhi members generally wear a jersey that matches the colours of their blanket which they wear.

Likewise, the jersey often has the word “Seakhi” or the slogan “Hasebetsoe” embroidered on it.

Seakhi members also have a preference of a woollen hat known as “Stragel”.

Both gangs claim that they are nothing but burial societies.

Despite having fragmented into two major groups, namely Terene ea Khosi Mokata and Terene ea Khosi Chakela, the two major factions of Terene remain largely centralised organisations which pay strong allegiance to their leaders.

Seakhi is more fragmented and decentralised. They generally owe their allegiance to the mountain of the region from which the specific faction associates itself and their slogan. For example, they will say “Hasebetsoe Seakhi Thaba-Kholo or Thabana Morena” and so on while the members of Terene will say “hae Tlale Terene ea Khosi Mokata or ea Khosi Chakela”.

Seakhi has fragmented into several smaller groups including, Phul’a Bobete, Thonado, Liamabatha.

The gangs operate across at least twelve areas of criminal activity: illegal mining, cable theft, livestock theft, guns and ammunitions, explosives, human trafficking, drug trafficking, car theft, murder, provision of supplies to illegal miners, money laundering and corruption of the security services and judicial systems.

Almost all these activities operate through syndicates which are hierarchically organised crime chains whose activities can either be loosely or tightly structured to reach their criminal ends.
These syndicates can operate within and across national boundaries.

Across all these syndicates the men in blankets occupy the lowest tier of the hierarchy.

Illegal gold
mining

Illegal Mining is perhaps the most lucrative of all the illegal activities that the gangs of men in blankets and most popularised as “zama-zama” in South Africa and makhomosha in Lesotho.
The illegal mining activities almost entirely happen in the South Africa which has over 6 000 abandoned mines of numerous minerals, the most prominent being gold.

The revenue from illegal gold mining is estimated at R8 billion per year.

Illegal mining is estimated to employ 30 000 illegal miners distributed across 39 hotspots in six of South Africa’s nine provinces.

Illegal miners, the majority of whom are members of the gangs, occupy the lowest tier of a five-layered hierarchy of the illegal mining syndicates.

The tiers above that of the illegal miners comprise the illegal mining kingpins, the majority of whom are the leaders of the famo gangs along with South African, Zimbabwean and Nigerian kingpins.

The tiers above that of the kingpins comprises the regional bulk buyers, the national and international distributors and finally the international buyers located in Dubai, China, India and Russia.

Cable Theft

Cable theft syndicates often comprise the diggers of copper cables at the lowest level. The copper is then sent to kingpins who then sell it to scrap iron dealers.
The scrap metal dealers then either repackage it for resale or melt it down for distribution on the legitimate or black market.

In other instances the scrap metal dealers acquire legitimate contracts to supply scrap iron then sub-contract thieves to obtain the copper and process it for sale to the contract.

It is estimated that cable theft costs the South African economy R47 billion annually. In January 2023 five men, four of whom were Lesotho nationals, appeared in the Christiana Magistrate court, Rustenburg, after being arrested with M5 million worth of copper cables and brass (247kg).

Illegal firearms

The gangs are heavily armed. Members have often been seen brandishing their guns in photographs and videos shared on social media. The guns brandished on various social media platforms are an assortment of pistols, automatic rifles and snipers.

The Facebook pages of the Lesotho Mounted Police Service and the Lesotho Defence Force regularly share information on illegal firearms impounded throughout the country.

The arms seizure by these two security institutions indicate that pistols, revolvers and pump action shotguns are the most regular finds.

In particular the 9mm Norinco, the 7.65 and the .38 are very popular finds.

The big question is where do they get the guns. Lesotho and South Africa have been pointing fingers at each other in this respect. However, it is worth noting that there are several gun smuggling syndicates in Southern Africa that supply guns to the gangs.

Some of the common channels that have been identified include reactivation of neutralised weapons from former liberation struggles in Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, with the latter becoming an even bigger problem due to the Islamic insurgency. There are also many guns stolen from homes during burglaries and thefts.

Some illegal guns are also sold on the Darknet. Chinese syndicates in illegal mining seem to be linked to the prevalence of the 9mm Norinco. There has also been the reactivation of decommissioned firearms used by security forces.

Global Initiative Against Organised Crime (GI-AOC) estimates that there are 3.8 million illegal guns circulating between three SADC countries of South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

South Africa alone has an estimated 2.35 million unregistered firearms. During the 2021 KwaZulu-Natal Riots following the arrest of Jacob Zuma 1.3 million rounds of ammunition were stolen from a Durban harbour privately owned container yard. Mark Shaw in a book titled Give Us More Guns documents how a Colonel in the South African Police Service SAPS Gauteng firearm licence division sold guns decommissioned by the SAPS to gang leaders.

The SAPS decommissioned the 9mm Z88 popularly known as the “Zuma” in 2000. The same guns have flooded the illegal gun market in South Africa and made their way to the hands of the men in blankets.

Livestock theft

Livestock theft also has its own syndicates with runners at the bottom of the hierarchy.

The runners are the ones who steal the livestock from the compounds of the livestock owners. According to the Chairman of the South African National Stock Theft Prevention Forum, runners may be paid as little as R500. Livestock stolen in South Africa may be sent to Lesotho where it is rebranded (given new tags) and cooled off (ensuring the tags heal properly) then re-exported to South Africa.

Alternatively, the livestock is stolen from Lesotho, and sold directly to the informal market in South Africa or sold to the meat butcheries and wholesalers.

Explosives

Commercial grade explosives such as dynamite are widely used in mining operations. They are also required in illegal mining operations. These explosives are commonly used to open ATM safes and in cash-in-transit heists. Evidence suggests that the explosives are usually smuggled from mines in Zimbabwe and acquired by the gangs mainly for their own mining operations.

Human
Trafficking

Evidence suggests that it is very difficult to enter into illegal mining without being associated with a major famo gang. Recruitment takes place in different ways.

Within the gangs the Kingpins have lieutenants who undertake recruitment for the gangs at village level in Lesotho or among Basotho living in squatter settlements in South Africa.
At the village level recruitment often begins with family members who are promised lucrative opportunities in the illegal mining business

Murder

The gangs of men in blankets have been major perpetrators of the very high murder rates witnessed in Lesotho. Reductionist explanations have argued that the primary cause of murders perpetrated by men in blankets has been the famo music genre that they sing.

Such explanations are overly simplistic. Gruesome as it may seem, gangs use murder as a medium of communication.

There are as such at least five different stimuli for murder within and between gangs.

Firstly, criminal gangs have their own anti-social code of conduct which is often strictly enforced.

Violation of the gang code can result in a gang leader or one of his lieutenants ordering the elimination of a gang member. One common aspect of the gang code which often results in such deaths is snitching which involves releasing the gang secrets with non-gang members, especially the police.

Secondly, murder is used to establish positions of dominance within the structures of the gang.

Often in the social media groups, gang members who have a reputation of killing quickly assume celebrity status within the gang. The late Chimama of Seakhi was one typical example.
Thirdly, gangs use violence in their struggles for turf for territory or markets for their illegal activities.

Amongst the gangs of men in blankets one of the most common areas for struggle for turf is in the occupation and access to illegal mining operations. This fuels inter-gang violence.
Fourth, gang members kill to send a vile message of intimidation.

For example they will not shoot a victim with one or two bullets if they can. They often use multiple bullets so that the scene appears gruesome and a message is sent to anyone thinking of approaching them that they are ‘bad boys’.

Fifth, once a gang member assumes celebrity status, he also becomes eligible to be a hitman – killers who are available to be hired by non-gang members to kill. Hitmen in these gangs are paid as little as M600.00.

Sixth, there are revenge killings where a gang member kills another gang member because that gang member was implicated in the killing of a close relative or friend. All these factors have played themselves out in the various killings related to both Terene, Seakhi, their splinter groups as well as conflicts within gangs. Finally, hits are often organised by gangs to destroy evidence in court as well as to intimidate potential witnesses.

Food and other Supplies

Illegal miners spend extraordinary time which sometimes extends into several months underground.

During that time they require food and other supplies which are taken down to them by other illegal miners who are able to go up to the surface or legal miners who go up to the surface on a regular basis.

The supplies of food and other necessities are facilitated by the kingpins as they are a lucrative business as many basic commodities are sold to the miners at exorbitant prices.

According to an article in Timeslive a loaf of white bread costs R150, a roll of toilet paper R300, a whole cooked chicken R500 and a six pack of Black Label beer R1500.

Corrupting the Security Sector and the Judiciary

The gangs of men in blankets have become increasingly brazen in approaching the police and the judiciary to get their way. Close association with the police is helpful to gang members in a number of ways that include offering protection to the gangsters, helping gang members to acquire legal firearms, disappearing dockets so that so that cases are thrown out of court, sabotaging prosecutions with false or faulty evidence so that cases collapse and reselling guns confiscated from proceeds of crime to the gangs.

In return many such policemen are placed on the gang payroll. Similar encroachments have been made in the military forces in order to acquire guns and sometimes training on how to use the large guns in the possession of the men in blankets.

Money
Laundering

The various illegal activities in which the men in blankets engage, involve huge amounts of money which is technically difficult to move through banks without ringing alarm bells. Men in blankets, particularly those who belong to Terene often display large amounts of money accumulated from their various activities.

This is often done to entice non-members to join their gangs.

The big money amongst the men in blankets is made by the kingpins. As noted by one kingpin who was interviewed by IOL in 2022, they make R20 million a month which they share amongst five of themselves as kingpins. Ordinary illegal miners can make between R200 000 and 400 000 over six months, depending on how much gold they would have been able to find.

Burial Societies

The gangs of men in blankets often portray themselves as burial societies. Some of them such as Terene ea Mokata are registered associations. These have been necessitated by the fact that so many of them die in South Africa and there is difficulty in bringing their remains home. This is often further complicated by their illegal migration status.

This morass indicates the need for a more coordinated and concerted effort to deal with the syndicates that sponsor the gangs of the men in blankets than just dealing with the runners at the bottom who are the men in blankets.

Setsabi Setsabi is a senior lecturer in Development Studies at the National University of Lesotho