The week that was | Nafiz Modack and Jerome 'Donkie' Booysen trials

CAPE TOWN - A State witness has turned the spotlight on a nightclub security war between alleged underworld kingpins Jerome "Donkie" Booysen and his rival, Nafiz Modack.  

Booysen and Modack are on trial in separate matters in the Western Cape High Court, where they face an array of charges - including murder and money laundering - related to running criminal enterprises.

Booysen and alleged underworld figures Mark Lifman, Andre Naude and their ten co-accused face 36 charges, among them the murder of "steroid king" Brian Wainstein, who was shot inside his Constantia home in 2017.  

Modack is on trial in the courtroom next door, where he faces 124 charges for a slew of crimes, including the murder of top cop Charl Kinnear.

This week a State witness in the Booysen trial, who cannot be named, testified he was a security guard for Wainstein and one of Booysen's alleged henchmen, Kishor Naidoo. Naidoo is currently on the run in Turkey as a fugitive on Interpol's Red List.

The witness has been implicated for his role in the murder of Wainstein and says Naidoo recruited him to join the 27s numbers gang.

He details how Booysen and his brother - alleged 26s gang boss Colin Booysen - had a fallout in 2017.

At the time the brothers controlled the security at nightclubs in Cape Town, but after the fallout Colin forged an alliance with Modack, using the 26s to muscle Booysen out.

The witness said Booysen, Lifman and Naude then recruited a faction of the 27s numbers gang to take back control of the nightclubs.

He said he attended various meetings with Booysen and other high-ranking 27's gangsters who plotted against Modack and Colin. He told the court he was also present on 9 and 10 April in 2017 when Booysen used about 100 27s gangsters to intimidate various nightclub owners in Cape Town in a show of force to oust Modack and Colin.

Meanwhile, in the Modack trial, one of the co-accused Jacques Cronje denied representing Modack at a meeting with Booysen to resolve a tow-truck company dispute in 2019.

This follows the testimony of a tow-truck industry regulator who can only be identified as Mr B. He told the court Cronje met with Booysen to try resolve a conflict involving a Durban-based tow-truck company which was forcing its way to work in Cape Town.  

Mr B said Cronje came to the meeting on behalf of Modack, who was linked to the tow-truck company in question, but Cronje denied this, telling the court he was at the meeting to represent the owner of the tow-truck company and was not instructed to do so by Modack.

Furthermore, Mr B told the court when Booysen arrived at the meeting five minutes late and confronted Cronje, the two men had a fallout which resulted in the meeting ending without a resolution.

Mr B said his employee - tow-truck driver Richard Joseph - was then murdered three weeks later. The State's first witness in matter, a self-confessed hitman who can only be identified as Mr A, had previously testified that Modack hired him to kill Joseph.

Both trials continue on Monday.