KEY POINTS
- The Nafiz Modack trial revealed alleged police links to crime bosses.
- He claimed officers helped rivals control Cape Town’s nightclub security.
- A magistrate later acquitted him, ruling police pressured witnesses.
An underworld figure alleges that top cops assisted rivals in controlling Cape Town clubs, and Modack accuses them of helping alleged crime bosses in drug deals.
Nafiz Modack trial exposes alleged police ties to crime bosses
Senior police officers have been accused by alleged underworld kingpin Nafiz Modack of helping criminals facilitate cocaine trades at nightclubs in Cape Town.
According to Modack’s testimony before the Western Cape High Court on Wednesday, former police officer Major-General Jeremy Vearey was collaborating with businessmen Mark Lifman and Jerome “Donkie” Booysen. As he started defending himself in a trial where he and 15 other defendants are facing more than 100 criminal charges, he made these accusations.
After his family business failed, Modack told the court that his dispute with Lifman and Booysen began at a real estate sale over ten years ago.
According to Iol, he said that a violent altercation resulted from Lifman’s effort to buy one of his houses at auction. Along with Booysen’s brother Colin, Modack said that Lifman had drawn a gun on him, which led to a feud that spread into the nightclub security industry.
According to Modack’s testimony, he later negotiated a deal with Mavericks’ owner by proposing to assume security duties at a discounted rate. He asserted that Lifman and his partner, Andre Naude, had previously overseen security at Mavericks and had permitted drug sales within the establishment.
Modack said that other nightclub owners then turned to him for protection in an effort to overthrow Lifman. He asserted, however, that authorities wrongly accused him of planning the violence after gunmen later assaulted these establishments.
Modack claims police fabricated charges to remove him from business
Modack claims that Vearey put pressure on him to hand over half of Cape Town’s nightclubs to Lifman, but he refused, stating that he preferred to maintain the establishments “drug-free.”
According to Modack’s testimony, Vearey sided with Lifman and Booysen. “He told me, ‘You are either with us or against us,'” Modack said.
Modack was detained and accused of extortion at The Grand nightclub many months later. He accused Lifman and Booysen for warning him of a conspiracy to assassinate him while he was incarcerated at Pollsmoor.
Modack was released on bail and then tried in the Cape Town Regional Court, where a magistrate found that police had coerced state witnesses to testify against him, leading to his acquittal.
