Fragmentation fuels Western Cape gang violence

Gang-related violence in the Western Cape has sustained a worrying upward trend over the past five years, with a significant acceleration in the frequency with which splinter groups form, gangs fragment, and new groups emerge to challenge long-established predecessors.

This is according to the report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime’s (GI-TOC) Western Cape Gang Monitor, which stated that gang-related murders in the first six months of 2025 were higher than in the same period in 2024.

GI-TOC said this is significant as gang-related murders had already doubled between 2020 and 2024.

Hotspot areas include parts of Hanover Park, Manenberg, Mitchells Plain, Delft and Elsies River. They largely coincide with areas where police stations are particularly vulnerable to corruption, reducing local resilience to gang activity, the report stated. 

The Western Cape is frequently cited as the epicenter of South Africa's gang crisis. Despite having less than 12% of the national population, it has been reported that the province accounts for nearly 90% of all gang-related murders in South Africa.

In a recent parliamentary reply, acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia revealed that between the 2020/2021 and 2024/2025 financial years, 472 children under the age of 17 years were murdered on the Cape Flats. 

Of that figure, 157 were gang-related murders. 

According to the report, although turf wars that lead to new groups taking over territory from older rivals in some areas have long been a characteristic of Western Cape gangs, there has been a significant acceleration in the frequency with which splinter groups form, gangs fragment, and new groups emerge to challenge long-established predecessors.

Some gangs have capitalised on this trend. The Fancy Boys, for example, have attracted breakaway members of rival gangs with promises of greater access to firearms and illicit profits. This has enabled their rapid expansion since 2020 and they are now one of the Western Cape’s largest gangs.

“By contrast, long-established gangs such as the Americans have come under attack: several recent American leaders have been assassinated, and breakaway groups such as the Dollar Kids, Junior Mafia and Inglourious Basterds (IGBs) have established their own operations. 

“While the Americans remain one of the largest and most powerful gangs – a position they have held for decades – a more volatile landscape is taking its toll. Meanwhile, powerful extortion gangs such as Boko Haram and the Guptas hold sway in township areas,” read the report.

Other contributing factors are extortion of businesses, particularly from foreign-owned shops, drugs, police corruption, corruption in public procurement, and systemic issues in the criminal justice system, and access to firearms.

These factors have driven increased violence in all the clusters. Yet varying inter-gang conflicts make each cluster unique. In some areas, violence is most strongly driven by new, breakaway groups of young gang members taking on the older generation. In others, violence has flared because major gangs with long-standing rivalries have struck up a new turf war.

The report stated that the death toll from gang violence in the Western Cape continues to mount amid systemic failings in the government’s response in three priority areas: 

- The lack of accountability in policing means strategic shortcomings are not addressed, police action does not lead to successful prosecutions, and police corruption is not adequately investigated. 

- There is no cohesive strategy for the prevention of gang violence. 

- More action is needed to stem the flow of firearms and ammunition to gangs.

The report also recommended that the government should create an oversight mechanism to monitor police progress in addressing gang violence, depoliticise the responses to gang violence, and investigate corruption and provide extra support in clusters of violence. 

Cape Times