A former right-hand man of slain crime lord Cyril Beeka tells of the Cape’s brutal security underworld industry.
|||Today a former right-hand man of slain crime lord Cyril Beeka takes you behind the curtain of the Cape’s brutal security underworld industry.
The man broke his silence in a no-holds-barred exclusive interview with the Daily Voice.
In the interview *Peter (not his real name) – who believes he would be killed if his identity was made public – reveals how:
* Security chiefs used intimidation tactics to scare the city’s nightclub owners into submission.
* He collected “management fees” from club owners on the orders of his mobster bosses.
* Beeka once brutally beat up an owner with a shop mannequin after he refused to pay up.
* Mobsters took over clubs by flooding them with drugs.
* The feared Sexy Boys gang – allegedly led by Jerome “Donkie” Booysen – helped controversial new security kingpins Specialised Protection Services (SPS) to take control of the city’s lucrative nightclub rackets.
“I started in the industry in 1992 when I began to work for Cyril Beeka,” Peter tells the Daily Voice.
“Cyril’s business was scaring and threatening people – intimidation, but not killing them.
“I’ll be the first to admit that he was dodge, but we became firm friends over the years and stayed in contact when he gave up his security business to his former business partner Jacques Cronje.”
According to Peter, well-known mobster Yuri “The Russian” Ulianitski took control of managing the doormen employed by Pro Security in 2003.
He says this was when intimidation tactics became part-and-parcel of the game.
“I remember one night in 2003, I went with Cyril and Yuri to a nightclub in town called Comic Strip,” Peter recalls.
“It wasn’t making much money and on this particular night it was quite empty.
“Anyway, Cyril was travelling around with one of those shop mannequins and we stopped at the club.
“We went inside and they demanded R5 000 from the owner for a ‘management fee’ but it was actually protection money.
“When the owner said he couldn’t pay that amount, Cyril hit him with the mannequin.”
He also recalls a time when he was sent to a nightclub to demand a R500-a-week management fee.
“I remember that night the owner said to me, ‘Why must I pay protection money to the same people I’m supposed to be protected from?’”
Peter says he eventually got sick of the escalating violence and intimidation and decided to go straight.
But he says it wasn’t easy.
“I remained in the loop because of my close friendship with Cyril and Jacques but I had to convince Cyril that I wouldn’t repeat anything about what I saw and witnessed,” he explains.
“And I witnessed some hectic things. They would send (henchmen who cannot be named to protect Peter’s real identity) into clubs armed with knives and they would push club-goers around.
“They would also go to the club owners’ homes and they would talk to their families.
“That would usually be enough to scare the club, pub and restaurant owners into signing up with the security firm.”
Peter says the nightclub security industry was completely driven by a desire to control the Cape’s multi-billion rand drug industry.
“It was all about the drugs. He who controlled the drugs controlled the clubs, but Cyril was just interested in the money.”
Peter explains Beeka decided to pull out of the business in 2005 and handed ownership of his Pro Security outfit to Cronje.
“Cyril relocated to Johannesburg but he still had carte blanche over the clubs and had unlimited access to the clubs in Cape Town,” Peter says.
“Jacques got the business legit and no longer used the intimidation methods made popular by Yuri and Cyril to get business.”
Cronje changed the name of the business from Pro Security to Pro Access.
For years it all ran smoothly – until he was persuaded to merge with Beeka’s once-rival in the club security industry, Andre Naude, and controversial Sea Point businessman Mark Lifman.
“After they got access to all Pro Access’ clients, they muscled Jacques out of the company,” Peter says.
Lifman and Naude were both recently arrested after their now-defunct SPS outfit came under the glare of intense media coverage.
But they were both subsequently released without charge.
Peter says Cronje cannot get his business back after he received chilling threats.
“In the early days, everybody was having fun but families got hurt and people had to close their businesses down because they couldn’t pay the ‘management fee’ – then it went legit and was run according to the law.
“But now the people who have taken control are using that same intimidation method that was used back when Cyril was king.”
*This article was published in the Daily Voice