Police are remaining tight-lipped over the assassination of one of South Africa’s most prominent figures in alleged organised crime circles, Mark Lifman.
Lifman was gunned down in the parking lot of the Garden Route Mall in George on Sunday morning, 3 November. It is reported that two men, allegedly Russian nationals, fled the scene in a white VW Polo and that they were later arrested in Uniondale.
Later on Monday afternoon, police confirmed that two suspects who were being questioned in connection with the murder, have been charged.
The pair, aged 37 and 53, are expected to appear in the George Magistrates Court on Tuesday.
In a statement on Sunday afternoon, police confirmed that they responded to a shooting incident at around 11:30 outside the Garden Route Mall where a “57-year-old man was killed by unknown assailants who fled the scene.”
Colonel Andre Traut said the circumstances of the incident are the subject of a police investigation, and “more information cannot be disclosed at this stage.”
Police also did not confirm the identity of the victim, but multiple media outlets reported that it was Lifman who was killed.
Lifman was facing multiple serious charges, including murder, attempted murder, money laundering, and gang-related offences, notoriously related to his involvement in alleged underworld battles for the control of nightclubs.
Lifman was due to appear in the Western Cape High Court on Monday, 4 November, Jerome ‘Donkie’ Booysen and 13 others, for the murder of so-called “steroid king” Brian Wainstein, who was gunned down in his bed in Constantia in August 2017.
He was reportedly in George to play golf at Fancourt before he went to the Mall on Sunday morning. Lifman was known to have bodyguards whenever he appeared in public, but he was reportedly alone on the day of the shooting.
There are fears that his murder will now spark another retaliatory gang war in Cape Town.
The Cape Flats Safety Forum’s Lynn Phillips says communities are fearful that his murder will result in more violence on Cape Town’s streets.
However, Ryan Cummings, the Director of the risk management consultancy, Signal Risk, believes Lifman’s influence had diminished in recent years as he faced many legal embattlements which rendered him a possible liability to his counterparts.
He says a bigger question around Lifman’s death is rather the fate of many of the city’s gang kingpins, and the larger concern about foreign criminal networks:
“If these individuals are not getting taken out by rivals/peers, they are facing legal embattlements which will see them jailed for a long time. A concern is who fills the void? My concern is the number of foreign criminal networks these individuals have partnered with and who are establishing a more entrenched presence in the city. From Nigerians to Colombians to underworld figures from the Balkans, our city is becoming a transnational crime hub.”
I met him at an auction in #CapeTown in 2010. Over 14 years he was accused of several crimes, which he denied, including the murder of global steroid smuggler Brian Wainstein aka the Steroid King. #Gang and other #organisedcrime accusations surfaced. A 🕸️https://t.co/KSzTN0qwJB
— Caryn Dolley (@caryndolley) November 3, 2024
