Welcome to Underworlds with Mark Shaw.

Organized Crime is everywhere, hidden in plain sight. The stories from this world have been mythologised by Hollywood. But the reality can be even stranger and more exciting than fiction.

From the golden age of the American mafia (La Cosa Nostra), to the modern-day cocaine empires, and from the shadowy links between organized crime and terrorism, to the twilight of the Yakuza.

In this series Mark Shaw, the Director of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime delves into non-fiction books about organized crime and the illicit economy with the authors themselves. He asks questions about their background and investigations, but also the challenges associated in writing about this murky world.

Organized crime in South Africa threatens the economy, its people and the democratic institutions themselves.

Every day we see a number of different and seemingly unconnected criminal incidents taking place - from assassinations to gang rapes in an illegal mining community; and from the violence of the taxi industry to organized cooper theft.

But what lies behind all of these actions is a dark web, a criminal ecosystem driven by an increasingly violent South African underworld.

In this episode Steph Musho talks to Julian Rademeyer, the Director of the East and Southern African Observatory at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime about a new and substantial report called 'Assessing South Africa's organized crime risk'.

The Cape Flats in South Africa is made up of 20 suburbs make up the Cape Flats; populated predominantly by black and coloured communities, a term used to describe those of mixed-heritage. Each suburb is marked by poverty, crime, drug abuse, gangsterism and violence.

In this, Lindy Mtongana's final episode, she looks at the Grassy Park where a slew of recent killings has exposed the devastating consequences of territorial battles among the Cape’s most dangerous gangs.

Presenter: Lindy Mtongana

Guests:

Julia Stanyard, Senior Analyst, Observatory for East and Southern Africa, Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.

Lyndsay Connelly, a community organiser in Grassy Park.

Additional Links:

Civil Society Observatory of Illicit Economies in Eastern and Southern Africa - Risk Bulletin - Issue 25

The Global Organized Crime Index - South Africa

Global Assassination Monitor

Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime