“I’ve seen burly men position themselves outside venues in Cape Town’s city centre during what cops say was a surge of bouncer battles. I’ve been to countless shooting scenes in gang strongholds. I’ve been threatened. I’ve monitored political developments and the impact on certain cops – one who’s been through so very much. In between all this, dirty intel agents are undoubtedly slithering about, surreptitiously shaping our lives.
This is why I’ve written this book – because now is the time to try and change how it’s often only in retrospect that we truly realise we are pawns in a “game” that devious proxies are playing to benefit their greedy masters.
Through detailing and contextualising Lincoln’s riveting career, I expose just how manipulators have consistently sabotaged South Africa.
This has cost him chunks of his health. It has gouged into this country’s security. The September 2020 assassination of Lincoln’s colleague detective Charl Kinnear points to this and his murder trial is churning out even more accusations of rogue policing – accusations that have persisted in South Africa over decades. The theme of this book.
If we understand how it manifests, we can prevent it in the future.”
This is the thrilling story of how a one-time anti-apartheid intelligence operative became one of South Africa’s most important police figures, heading units under immense fire from all sides.
It is the story of how apartheid-era policing structures lay the foundations for cop-gangster collusion and how these have endured into democracy.
With exclusive access to André Lincoln, journalist Caryn Dolley uncovers the electrifying dynamics of undercover work – first against the state, then for it; she delves into court cases and through years of reporting and research exposes, for the first time and in full, the sordid scandal – with Lincoln at its centre – that has lacerated the South African Police Service and implicated some of the country’s top cops and politicians.
Award-winning Daily Maverick journalist Caryn Dolley has spent years tracing the footprints of cops, gangs and kingpins in South Africa and across the world. Through examining police investigations, delving into court documents, interviews with countless sources, and painstakingly tracking arrests, she pieces together a horrific puzzle showing how different criminal empires have overlapped, merged and clashed in South Africa.
She has published three books to great public and critical acclaim: Clash of the Cartels: Unmasking the global drug kingpins stalking South Africa in 2022, To The Wolves: How traitor cops crafted South Africa’s underworld in 2021 and The Enforcers: Inside Cape Town’s deadly nightclub battles in 2019.
Read more about Caryn’s work at caryndolley.com
