THE ENFORCERS

<p>CAPE TOWN’S POPULAR high-end night spots attract an array of clientele from young partygoers to politicians models to moguls. In parallel with this is a sleazy underworld where control of the lucrative nightclub-security scene is the ultimate prize for which some are prepared to pay using extortion and murder as the main currencies.</p><p>South Africa’s private-security sector is massive an informal police force increasingly relied on as confidence in traditional policing wanes. But it’s an industry tainted by ties to underworld figures and events.</p><p>The Mother City’s security turf wars have their roots in pre-democratic South Africa and branch into Cape Flats gang battles raging since the 1990s. Dotting this landscape are colourful and contentious figures – Yuri ‘The Russian’ Ulianitski nightclub-security kingpin and rumoured apartheid-state operative Cyril Beeka convicted drug dealer Radovan Krej?í? controversial businessman Nafiz Modack and Mark Lifman. Making surprise appearances are high-ranking police officers as well as prominent members of the ANC and government.</p><p>Journalist Caryn Dolley has interviewed numerous criminal and suspects often putting herself in danger in pursuit of the truth. Here she weaves her research into a story that lays bare the reality of Cape Town’s nightclub-security wars: a vast network of information and misinformation in which innocent members of the public enjoying a night out inadvertently rub shoulders with some of the city’s most infamous criminals.</p>