Gang boss linked to Prasa contracts on Cape Town Central Line

A new investigation by AmaBhungane has revealed how alleged 28s gang boss Ralph Stanfield may have had some influence over security contracts linked to the rebuilding of Cape Town Central Line.

The rail line, which once served thousands of commuters, has been out of operation since 2019 due to vandalism, with trains currently only running from Cape Town to Chris Hani.

According to the investigation, Stanfield and his wife, the co-accused Nicole Johnson, allegedly worked with Alexio Papadopulo, the acting head of security at the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa), to help companies they had links to obtain security work on the multibillion rand rail reconstruction project.

Sam Sole of the AmaBhungane Centre for Investigative Journalism says they uncovered a host of circumstantial evidence that Prasa 'got into bed' with Stanfield.

He shared some background on the investigation with CapeTalk's Lester Kiewit.

"We had a tip-off back in 2022, alleging that there had been direct contact between the head of security, Mr Papadopalou and Ralph Stanfield around Prasa's reconstruction project."

Sole says the publication asked questions at the time, but both men refused to answer.

"Since then, we've got evidence of quite a lot pointing to at least direct contact between Papadopulo and Stanfield's accountant and evidence of contact between other people in the Stanfield organisation and members of the top security team... and evidence of Stanfield getting involved in sub-contracts."

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Sole says the evidence points to what appears to be a classic organised crime tactic.

"It's a classic protection racket that we've seen in the construction industry; it's a classic mafia racket. You produce violence and then say, 'You've got to cut us in', or, 'You've got to pay'."

Sole says historically there was a lot of violence on the Central Line, citing a viral video from 2022 of masked gunmen on the line issuing a warning and firing into the air.

"We were able to establish that one of the people in the video was Ernest McLaughlin, who was Stanfield's former right-hand man."

The findings raise serious questions about the state-owned enterprise, and Sole says Prasa's response to AmaBhungane's findings has been 'problematic'.

"We sent them pages and pages of detailed questions, setting out the evidence that we had, and they gave us very brief responses... [they] essentially put the blame on whatever relationships there might have been on the sub-contractors, said they didn't get involved in that, whereas the evidence we have says they did get involved in that."

To read the full article from AmaBhungane, click here.

To listen to Sole in conversation with CapeTalk's Lester Kiewit, use the audio player below: