Unafraid to challenge the status quo, CR Snyman's Criminal Law takes a challenging look at criminal law in South Africa.

This book has been thoroughly revised in light of important changes in the South African legal system, with updated reference to the latest reported judgements.

In the early 1990's the Norwood Rapist and serial killer was on the loose, sending a suburb of women into terror. In a deadly game of cat and mouse, echoing Clarice and Hannibal Lector in Silence of The Lambs, Lazarus is used by the police as a decoy to hunt Geldenhyus who has terrorised the JHB suburb of Norwood. It becomes extremely personal – the hunter hunting the hunted.

Set in the newsroom of the predigital era, the gruesome story was competing with some of the hugest headlines in our transition to democracy. Written as a riveting behind-the-headlines true crime memoir with a most unusual twist, the book explores fascinating newsroom ethics and questionable police procedures while delving into the power relationship between a reporter, an editor and a serial killer.

If we are to believe that journalists should shape the news – not make the news – Lazarus breaks just about every rule in the newsroom guide book as she becomes increasingly obsessed with Geldenhyus.

'n Intieme blik op bendegeweld – van dié wat die geweld gepleeg het sowel as dié wat onskuldig is. Carla van der Spuy praat met mense van ’n gangster wat “nie genoeg vingers en tone het” om te sê hoeveel mense hy gedood het nie tot ’n ma wie se kind sonder waarskuwing aangeval was. Sy laat toe dat mense in hul eie woorde ’n beeld skep van die hoop en wanhoop, onsekerheid en vasberadenheid wat deel is van lewe tussen gangsters.

Met hierdie boek is daar insig tot hoe die gangs ledes kry, sowel as hoe mense probeer om weg te breek daarvan. Daar is insig vanaf ’n polisielid en van die groep wat ’n veel beter rehabilitasiesyfer het as die tronk – want daar is steeds hoop. Hier lê ’n gemeenskap sy hart bloot.

News24’s top journalists who were on the ground give a riveting firsthand account of what went down when South Africa was set alight shortly after Jacob Zuma’s imprisonment.

Dramatic and violent scenes unfolded in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng during the eight-day period of unrest and looting – the worst of its kind since apartheid ended. The violence claimed more than 300 lives and caused damage of R50 billion.

The three authors were on the scene covering all aspects of the violence from its inception which began as protests against Zuma's incarceration before it spiraled into widespread looting and violence which was later labelled an insurrection.

Includes dramatic detail of what went down in hotspot areas, as well as what happened behind the scenes politically, and how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together.

Stellenbosch is world renowned for its wine, gorgeous scenery, and beautiful people. It’s the home of students working towards their future, successful businessmen and respected professors. But don’t let the luxury and blue mountains fool you. The sleepy town hides numerous crimes that rocked this community, the country and the world.

Over the past two decades the front pages of newspapers splashed the details of the murders of Inge Lotz, Hannah Cornelius, Susan Rohde, the Van Breda family... But this book also contains the less known victims such as Felicity Cilliers, the farm worker who’s murder was forgotten by all but her family. The victims and the murderers in this book come from all walks of life and confirms that not even Stellenbosch can escape the harsh reality of crime in South Africa.

The acclaimed author and journalist Julian Jansen third book reads like a crime novel and contains never before published information on each of the crimes.

Die motiewe agter gesinsmoorde is dikwels vreemder as fiksie. Tergende vrae kan deur psigiaters beantwoord word ... of dalk nie. Deur na verskeie gevalle van gesinsmoord te kyk gooi hierdie boek ’n bietjie lig in 'n baie donker plek. Met onder meer die stories van die Lotters wat gebreinspoel was tot moord op hul ouers en die Van Breda bylmoorde.

For nearly eighty years, a huge portion of coastal South Africa was closed off to the public. With many of its pits now deemed “overmined” and abandoned, American journalist Matthew Gavin Frank sets out across the infamous Diamond Coast to investigate an illicit trade that supplies a global market. Immediately, he became intrigued by the ingenious methods used in facilitating smuggling particularly, the illegal act of sneaking carrier pigeons onto mine property, affixing diamonds to their feet, and sending them into the air.

Entering Die Sperrgebiet (“The Forbidden Zone”) is like entering an eerie ghost town, but Frank is surprised by the number of people willing—even eager—to talk with him. Soon he meets Msizi, a young diamond digger, and his pigeon, Bartholomew, who helps him steal diamonds. It’s a deadly game: pigeons are shot on sight by mine security, and Msizi knows of smugglers who have disappeared because of their crimes. For this, Msizi blames “Mr. Lester,” an evil tall-tale figure of mythic proportions.

From the mining towns of Alexander Bay and Port Nolloth, through the “halfway” desert, to Kleinzee’s shores littered with shipwrecks, Frank investigates a long overlooked story. Weaving interviews with local diamond miners who raise pigeons in secret with harrowing anecdotes from former heads of security, environmental managers, and vigilante pigeon hunters, Frank reveals how these feathered bandits became outlaws in every mining town.

Interwoven throughout this obsessive quest are epic legends in which pigeons and diamonds intersect, such as that of Krishna’s famed diamond Koh-i-Noor, the Mountain of Light, and that of the Cherokee serpent Uktena. In these strange connections, where truth forever tangles with the lore of centuries past, Frank is able to contextualize the personal grief that sent him, with his wife Louisa in the passenger seat, on this enlightening journey across parched lands.

Blending elements of reportage, memoir, and incantation, Flight of the Diamond Smugglers is a rare and remarkable portrait of exploitation and greed in one of the most dangerous areas of coastal South Africa.

A remarkable new book about a dark stain on modern South Africa – our enormous and problematic prison population – and what we can do to fix it.

"Lock them up and throw away the key!" is a cry we hear often in South Africa today. But this simplistic solution to crime simply isn’t working. As Father Babychan Arackathara, a Catholic chaplain to some of the Western Cape’s most notorious prisons, shows in this compassionate reflection on his work, even criminals have stories, and crime invariably has roots. He listens to those stories and untangles those roots on our behalf, sharing insights into the brokenness of our society and communities – and offering real, workable suggestions for fixing them.

Can we move to the ideal of hating the crime, but loving the criminal? What must we do to see that offenders are themselves victims and to engage them constructively? How do we break the cycles of addiction, trauma and crime to reach for reconciliation and transformation?

Here is the Cape Town underworld laid bare, explored through the characters who control the protection industry, the bouncers and security at nightclubs and strip clubs.

At the centre of this turf war is Nafiz Modack, the latest kingpin to have seized control of the industry, a man often in court on various charges, including extortion. Investigative journalist Caryn Dolley has followed Modack and his predecessors for six years as power has shifted in the nightclub security industry, and she focuses on how closely connected the criminal underworld is with the police services. In this suspenseful page turner of an investigation, she writes about the overlapping of the state with the underworld, the underworld with the upperworld, and how the associated violence is not confined to specific areas of Cape Town, but is happening inside hospitals, airports, clubs and restaurants and putting residents at risk.

A book that lays bare the myth that violence and gangsterism in Cape Town is confined to the ganglands of the Cape Flats, wherever you find yourself, you’re only a hair’s breadth away from the enforcers.

When you next sit down at your local coffee shop, look around you: there may just be a professional hitman sitting at the next table. As author Mark Shaw reveals in this highly original and informative book, the ‘upper world’ sails perilously close to the underworld.

Hitmen For Hire takes the reader on a journey like no other, navigating a world of hammermen (hitmen), informers, rogue policemen, taxi bosses, gang leaders and crooked businessmen. The book examines a system in which contract killings have become the norm, looking at who arranges hits, where to find a hitman, and even what it is like to be a hitman – or woman.

Since 1994, South Africa has witnessed some spectacular underworld killings associated with various industries and sectors. Drawing on over a thousand cases, from 2000 to 2016, Shaw reveals how these murders have an outsized impact on the evolution of both legal and illegal economic activity.

Nothing in life is certain, except death and taxes – or so the expression goes. And over the past two decades South African criminals and tax dodgers have come to realise this truth the hard way.

Tax sleuth Johann van Loggerenberg was at the centre of many of SARS’ high-profile cases during his time there. As far as SARS is concerned all forms of income are subjected to tax, even if by ill-gotten means. Whether you are a drug dealer from Durban, one of the hitmen who shot Brett Kebble or soccer boss Irvin Khoza, you have to pay your dues!

Van Loggerenberg relates the riveting inside stories of the investigations into businessmen like Dave King, Billy Rautenbach, Barry Tannenbaum and his ponzi scheme, and others. Over the years he got to know all the scams and dirty tricks in the book and he explains these in plain language.

In these investigations the tax authority worked closely with the police, the NPA and the Directorate of Special Operations. However, after a few years SARS became the victim of its own success. In telling the stories of how tax evaders were caught, Van Loggerenberg also shows how the power struggle between different state departments and the phenomenon of state capture in recent years started crippling SARS.

Stellenbosch staan internasionaal bekend as 'n dorp van weelde en wyn, 'n plek van pragtige natuurskoon en mooi mense. Dit is die tuiste van Suid-Afrika se sake-adel, geleerde professore en studente bestem vir groot dinge.

Maar die idilliese beeld wat in reisbrosjures en op sosiale media voorgehou word, versluier 'n skadukant. Tussen die ou eikebome, blou berge en geskiedkundige wynplase broei dieselfde boosheid wat Suid-Afrika een van die lande met die hoogste moordsyfer in die wêreld maak.

Oor die afgelope twee dekades het verskeie opspraakwekkende moordsake in dié dorp koerantvoorblaaie gehaal. Inge Lotz, Hannah Cornelius, Susan Rohde, die Van Breda-gesin... Maar hierdie boek gaan ook oor Stellenbosch se minder bekende slagoffers soos dié van die plaaswerker Felicity Cilliers - 'n vrou van wie die wêreld vergeet het.

'n Uiteenlopende verskeidenheid slagoffers en moordenaars tree in die blaaie van dié boek na vore en wys dat nie eens Stellenbosch die oersondes kan vryspring nie.

"I wanted to write this book before I forgot the finer details. As strange as that may sound, you can forget these things, and it is probably healthier to do so. You can visit the depths of hell – just don’t hang around there for too long." – Gérard Labuschagne

In this gripping – and sometimes terrifying – account, former South African Police Service (SAPS) head profiler Dr Gérard Labuschagne, successor to the legendary Micki Pistorius, recalls some of the 110 murder series and countless other bizarre crimes he analysed during his career. An expert on serial murder and rape cases, Labuschagne saw it all in his fourteen and a half years in the SAPS. He walks the reader through the first crime scene he ever attended, his arrest of the Muldersdrift serial rapist, his experience as the head of the task team mandated to catch the Quarry serial murderer, his involvement with the Brighton Beach axe murders, and more. Despite often being stymied by a lack of resources, office politics and political interference, Labuschagne and his team were always determined to get their man – or woman, as in the Womb Raider case.

The Profiler Diaries is a fascinating – and often hair-raising – glimpse into what it was like to be a profiler in the world’s busiest profiling unit.

How to Steal a City is an insider account of this intervention, which lays bare how the administration was entirely captured and bled dry by a criminal syndicate, how factional politics within the ruling party abetted that corruption, and how a comprehensive clean-up was eventually conducted.

It is written as a gripping real-life thriller, taking the reader deeper and deeper into the rotten heart of the city. As a former senior government official and local government “fixer”, Crispian Olver was no stranger to dealing with dodgy politicians and broken organisations. Yet what he found was graft that went far beyond the dodgy contracts, blatant conflicts of interest and garden-variety kickbacks he had seen before. It had evolved into a web far more sophisticated and deep rooted than he had ever imagined, involving mazes of shell companies, assassinations, criminal syndicates, and compromised local politicians. The metro was effectively controlled by a criminal network, closely allied to a dominant local ANC faction. What he found was complete state capture—a microcosm of what has been happening in South Africa’s national government.

But there was a personal price to pay. Intense political pressure and threats to his personal safety took a toll on his mental and physical health. He had to have a full-time bodyguard, and never maintained a regular routine. He eventually lost much of his political cover. Olver ultimately had to flee the city as the forces stacked against him started to wreak their revenge.

This is his story.

More riveting cases from the files of former police psychologist and bestselling author Gérard Labuschagne.

In this second instalment of The Profiler Diaries, former South African Police Service (SAPS) head profiler Dr Gérard Labuschagne, successor to the legendary Micki Pistorius, recalls more of the 110 murder series and countless other bizarre crimes he analysed during his career. An expert on serial murder and rape cases, Labuschagne saw it all in his fourteen and a half years in the SAPS. Often stymied by a lack of resources, office politics and legal incompetence, Labuschagne and his team were nevertheless determined to obtain justice for the victims whose cases they were tasked with investigating.

Tracking down a prolific serial stalker, linking the murders of two young women in Knysna, assessing a suspect threatening to assassinate Barack Obama and apprehending a serial murderer of sex workers are just a few of the intriguing – and often terrifying – cases he covers in his second book, The Profiler Diaries 2: From Crime Scene to Courtroom.

As Labuschagne says, catching a killer is one thing; getting them convicted in a court of law is an entirely different ball game. This book shows how it is done in fascinating detail.

All that glitters is not gold. Gold is the new cocaine - and it's just as lucrative, dangerous, and destructive.

Dirty Gold is a searing expose on the booming gold mining industry and destruction on the land and people of Latin America. It looks closely at a small US firm in Miami that helped transform the city into the nation's No.1 importer of gold into the United States. The book follows the meteoric rise and fall of a group of drug traders known as 'the three amigos' who laundered narco money through gold illegally brought into the US and raked in millions before they were caught.

Whilst they were making their millions, the humanitarian situation in Colombia, Peru, and many other countries deteriorated dramatically.

Ná herhaaldelike polisiebrouwerk begin kaptein Ben Booysen die Krugersdorp-moorde in 2016 manalleen ondersoek.

Booysen haal koerantvoorblaaie toe hy die baasbrein, Cecilia Steyn, en haar vyf trawante vir minstens 11 moorde in hegtenis neem.

Suid-Afrika se eie “Chuck Norris” neem die leser tot agter die skerms van die satanistiese moorde en onthul nuwe, skokkende besonderhede van die misdade wat die land amper ’n dekade lank vasgenael gehou het.

In 2012, retired South African major general Johan Jooste was parachuted into the seemingly unwinnable war against rhino poaching in the Kruger National Park.

With poaching spiralling out of control, Jooste was given the mandate to ‘go military’, to convert Kruger’s ranger corps into a paramilitary force capable of taking the fight to the poachers. Aged 60, white, and a veteran of his country’s apartheid-era wars, Jooste’s controversial appointment was immediately met with resentment and outright hostility by elements of South African National Parks, the police, and even the military with which he had served. With the media, government, conservationists, human-rights activists and the people of South Africa looking over his shoulder, Jooste had to battle opponents within and without to carry out his strategy for turning the tide of rhino poaching.

Rhino War tells how Jooste, facing an unprecedented assault on a national park and a single species, turned a force of demoralised men and women into arguably the finest anti-poaching unit on the African continent. Told through his eyes, these stories of the courage and grit of rangers who risked their lives to protect wildlife in the face of a wily and determined foe are an account of heroism, sacrifice and determination.

Humbly, honestly and decisively, Jooste tells of the successes and failures of his bold strategy, and shares his vision for the future.

A story of Mandela’s top cop, steeped in apartheid-era sabotage across local and global criminal investigations spanning decades. Add in nefarious individuals, from an informant once close to Colombia’s Pablo Escobar, to several suspected Cape Town crime kingpins, the stakes only get higher.

This is the scandal that has lacerated the South African Police Service, and implicated some of the country’s top cops and politicians. Bestselling author Caryn Dolley provides unprecedented insight into how apartheid-era policing structures lay the foundations for cop-gangster collusion and how these have endured into democracy.

With exclusive access to retired policeman André Lincoln’s life, Dolley exposes the dirty ploys that have swung South Africa’s trajectory; how street-level killings could be flashpoints of deep state proxy wars; and raises suspicions about who in Nelson Mandela’s realm backstabbed whom.

When we say we want to be safe, what do we mean? Is the state capable of achieving this for us? These are important questions for anyone envisioning and building a future anywhere, but especially in South Africa. This book explores contemporary South African society through the lens of law and order, and with the goal of understanding what reform must look like going forward, in a way that is accessible to ordinary citizens who need this most. 

In South Africa, both ‘crime’ and ‘safety’ are loaded terms. Ziyanda Stuurman unpacks the complex and fraught history of policing, courts and prisons in South Africa. In her analysis of the problems nationally and in putting those problems in context with the rest of the world, she concludes that more resources won’t necessarily lead to more safety. What then, will?

Ziyanda unpacks this complex question deftly with a view of a better future for us all.

Dirty cops, trafficking rings, globe-spanning, nail-biting undercover detective work and the biggest takedown of the online narcotics market in the history of the internet. This is the story of how a single innovation has fuelled the world's criminal financial markets, and unleashed a cat-and mouse game like no other.

Over the last decade, crime lords inhabiting lawless corners of the internet have operated more freely - whether in drug dealing, money laundering, or human trafficking - than their old school counterparts could have ever dreamed of. By transacting in currencies with anonymous ledgers, overseen by no government and beholden no bankers, they have robbed law enforcement of the primary method of cracking down on illicit finance: following the money.

But what if this dark economy held a secret, fatal flaw? What if their currency wasn't so cryptic after all? Could an investigator using the right mixture of technical wizardry, financial forensics, and old-fashioned persistence uncover an entire criminal underworld?

Lords of Crypto Crime is the gripping, insider story of how a brilliant group of investigators took down the biggest kingpins of the dark web.

About 50km outside of Cape Town lies the beautiful town of Stellenbosch, nestled against vineyards and blue mountains that stretch to the sky. Here reside some of South Africa’s wealthiest individuals: all male, all Afrikaans – and all stinking rich. Johann Rupert, Jannie Mouton, Markus Jooste and Christo Weise, to name a few.

Julius Malema refers to them scathingly as ‘The Stellenbosch Mafia’, the very worst example of white monopoly capital. But who really are these mega-wealthy individuals, and what influence do they exert not only on Stellenbosch but more broadly on South African society?

Author Pieter du Toit begins by exploring the roots of Stellenbosch, one of the wealthiest towns in South Africa and arguably the cradle of Afrikanerdom. This is the birthplace of apartheid leaders, intellectuals, newspaper empires and more.

He then closely examines this ‘club’ of billionaires. Who are they and, crucially, how are they connected? What network of boardroom membership, alliances and family connections exist? Who are the ‘old guard’ and who are the ‘inkommers’, and what about the youngsters desperate to make their mark? He looks at the collapse of Steinhoff: what went wrong, and whether there are other companies at risk of a similar fate. He examines the control these men have over cultural life, including pulling the strings in South Africa rugby.

It is April 1997, a Monday. A young mother gives birth to a girl in Cape Town's Groote Schuur Hospital. On the Wednesday, 48 hours later, the mother's life is turned upside down when it is discovered that her baby has been stolen. Then, 17 years later, the girl is reunited with her biological family in the most unlikely manner imaginable after she was discovered at school by her younger sister - a split image of herself. This book tells the tale of what is called "an extraordinary story of hope and serendipity" by M-Net's award-winning Carte Blanche programme.

It is a story that touched newspaper readers, website visitors, radio listeners and television viewers across the globe: "Such an amazing story," commented Oprah's best friend, Gail King, the co-anchor of This Morning on CBS in America. A Home For Zephany records the tale, as it played out until now, through the voices of the girl's biological parents, Morne and Celeste Nurse, extended family members, neighbours, newspaper archives, Facebook posts, letter and SMS writers, radio and television presenters, politicians, clinical psychologists and journalists.

This book also offers a gripping appreciation, growing up on the Cape Flats, by Professor Jonathan Jansen; and an insightful foreword by the renowned actor and playwright, Christo Davids, and afterword by the director of Molo Songololo, Patric Solomns.

Brutally dragged 780 metres beneath a taxi – a young woman’s inspiring story of survival, courage, and the will to live.

13 September 2011. The story would shock thousands and be remembered by many for years to come. It would be plastered all over the papers and continue to attract interest well after the shock factor of what happened had passed. Reports and articles would be written, and “facts”, as given to reporters by some of those involved and willing to be interviewed, would be recounted and repeated in all forms of public media over the months and even years that followed. And although these versions would generate widespread outrage, none was entirely accurate.

"The stories were about me. I was there. I am Kim McCusker - the girl who was dragged by a taxi. This, as I experienced it, is the true version of events."

What is more profitable than cocaine, heroin, marijuana or guns? Illegally trafficked cigarettes . . .

Reputable tobacco companies have – for decades – been complicit in cigarette smuggling. In this gripping exposé, former SARS lawyer Telita Snyckers uncovers the dark underbelly of the tobacco industry.

She recounts the instances where big tobacco itself was caught redhanded and explores not only why a listed company would want to smuggle its own product, but also how it was done.