The murder of a young father in Knightsbridge, ostensibly for attempting to stop the theft of his watch, is not simply another statistic or another indication — despite the Mayor’s feeble denials — that crime is out of control in the capital. It is transitional symbolism and an expression of intent; when organised Rolex gangs or rippers emerge to torment mainstream patches of society, including tourists, it reveals that a darkness has come, because it has been allowed to.
The same happened in Johannesburg in the mid 2000s. By that time South African police had been severely weakened from within — a strategy initiated by Nelson Mandela who, spooked by coups in other African countries, deliberately emasculated the nation’s security apparatus, transforming the police force into a “service”. This was augmented by his successor, Thabo Mbeki, who appeared content to appoint one of the most corrupt African National Congress (ANC) members, Jackie Selebi, as his national commissioner (in 2010, Selebi was convicted of fraud and sentenced to 15 years. He died in 2015).
In 2005, Johannesburg was in chaos. With the city surrounded almost entirely by poverty, marauding gangs featuring fatherless, unemployed young men from the townships would enter its prosperous northern suburbs at night. First came the car hijackings, and when the gangs learned of police ineptitude in both responding to and investigating their crimes, they followed with home invasions. These were notoriously violent, often resulting in the execution or maiming of the homeowner. Only when a former IDF commander was summoned by the country’s Chief Rabbi to design a strategy (the highly successful Community Action Program — or CAP) to protect orthodox Jews walking the city’s streets on weekends, were residents in Johannesburg’s north — those who had not yet fled — able to breathe again.
One of the worst events occurred in 2006. Following a heist at a supermarket on the West Rand, police followed 12 suspected gangsters back to a house in a ghetto on the city’s edge. In what became known as the Jeppestown Massacre, four policemen were killed along with eight of the gang’s members.
Into the chaos came the first Rolex gangs. Around 2007, reports started emerging that people were being followed home from shopping malls, restaurants or even the airport; waiting at their gates to enter their properties, they were accosted by two or three gangsters at the driver’s window who would hold firearms to their temples and remove their watches. If the victim was a woman, her rings would go too. Sometimes the assailant would put her fingers in his mouth and try suck and bite them off.
The thugs scooped a number of scalps. Celebrity lawyers, wives of ANC politicians, bankers and sports personalities all fell victim to their armed robberies, and not even the extensive security detail belonging to one of the city’s most popular philanthropists — whose cousin was Keir Starmer’s biggest donor in 2024’s election cycle — prevented his watch being lifted.
It was easy to get lost in the darkness. Whilst the Rolex gangs were wreaking havoc, musicians such as Lucky Dune, and sportspeople such as the soccer player Eudy Simelane, were being slain in brutal fashion, and the ANC was unprepared to act assertively. I learned of this through the late Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi whom I sat next to at the funeral of murdered battlefield historian David Rattray in 2007. Buthulezi, a former leader of the Inkatha Freedom Party IFP), was a lifelong friend to Rattray and deeply troubled by his senseless killing: “The ANC don’t want to compromise their support base,” he said, “and this is what is happening”.
It took conviction to finally confront the Rolex gangs. It involved parties like CAP, who were able to provide intelligence, former military operators, marksmen and the elite division of the police, the Special Taskforce, whose members were seen as incorruptible. From this arrangement a tracing unit was formed and armed with hollow tip bullets designed to paralyse the brainstem. By this point the group also had identified its primary target: a ruthless thug called Kelvin Ludidi, whose gang was linked to 60 violent murders, assaults and robberies.
Ludidi had been active since 1995. Considered a gifted strategist, he was also notoriously violent, but had bizarrely been afforded bail on 16 different occasions. In 2009, members of a response unit had spotted him in the upmarket suburb of Sandton. A high-speed chase ensued, and Ludidi was shot in the arm. Unsurprisingly, he was soon out on the street soon after.
If Ludidi’s slipperiness wasn’t perplexing enough, rumours started circulating that high level officials were linked to Ludidi via chain of custody. The stolen Rolex would be sold to a Johannesburg businessman for cents in the Rand, who would then ship the item to Greece or Turkey. One theory suggested that watches in Bodrum being sold as meticulous replicas for half the shelf price of originals were actually the real thing taken from the wrists of Johannesburg’s victims. The businessman, of Greek extraction, was said to have paid for the engagement band of one of South Africa’s most renowned detectives (since deceased).
The attitude of South African officials then matched the attitudes of Britain’s policing now. A sneering emphasis on “law” (or a projection of its more right-on interpretations), policing being ordered to “change” (even more), a procession of pseudo-academic theories into the origins of violent crime, and equally ludicrous recommendations to victims of rape and serious assault, such as “restorative justice”. The willingness of the courts to bail Ludidi weighed on the confidence of the tracing unit and its associates, who were drafted into dealing with other crises.
In 2012, two policemen patrolling a suburb adjacent to Sandton noticed a car with two occupants behaving curiously. They approached the vehicle only to be fired upon. One of the constables drew his sidearm and fired multiple rounds back, hitting one of the occupants in his neck and chest. He died shortly thereafter, but by then both constables had already recognised him and were radioing in for support. It was Kelvin Ludidi.
Rolex gangs thrived because of weak enforcement conditions, low morale among police and a pathological obsession with irrelevances
Now, London’s chances to erect the necessary preventative infrastructure have been slipping away. The fault doesn’t belong to Sir Sadiq Khan’s meaningless platitudes alone, but this generation of woefully aloof politicians, one of the worst being Ed Davey, whose only acknowledgement to date that something is profoundly wrong with society has been to soft-scold people (indirectly, of course), for playing music loudly on trains. Coupled to the sliding priorities of police, London has become possibly the most fertile ground in Western Europe for violent armed robberies. And now, resistance can mean death.
Johannesburg’s Rolex gangs thrived because of weak enforcement conditions, low morale among police and a pathological obsession with irrelevances inside of the political and criminal justice apparatus. One victim to whom I spoke in 2009 confessed that he’d found himself asking a question to a gangster whose gun was in his ear. “Why are you doing this?” The gangster placed the man’s watch in his pocket and looked at him as if he was crazy. “Because we can.” He then walked unbothered back to the getaway car, and drove off.
