BREAKING: Cape Town underworld figure Andre Naude shot dead
A heavy police presence descended on the intersection of Voortrekker Road and Giel Basson Drive in Parow on Thursday afternoon following the fatal shooting of Andre Naude, a figure long associated with Cape Town's criminal underworld.
Naude was pronounced dead at the scene.
Emergency services responded swiftly, but paramedics were unable to revive him.
Police have cordoned off the area, and investigators are currently on-site collecting evidence and speaking to potential witnesses.
While unconfirmed reports of an assassination have begun circulating on social media, authorities have not officially stated whether the shooting was a targeted hit or the result of other circumstances.
Naude was reportedly accompanied by at least one bodyguard at the time of the incident.
Andre Naude's name has for years been linked to organised crime in the Western Cape, and his activities have drawn significant attention from both law enforcement and media.
His death marks a potentially significant development in Cape Town's ongoing struggle with organised criminal networks.
Police have urged members of the public to avoid the area while the investigation is underway and to refrain from speculation until more information becomes available.
'We are currently investigating all angles and will provide updates in due course,' said a police spokesperson.
The motive behind the shooting and the identities of those involved remain unknown.
No arrests have been made at this stage.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.
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Daily Maverick
5 hours ago
- Daily Maverick
Murdered Andre Naude's own words — ‘I've got a gun on my waist and a bulletproof car'
Cape Town murder plot accused Andre Naude operated among several individuals who were suspected of crimes — and who went on to be assassinated. He previously claimed this arena was 'not cowboys and crooks', but his own murder now suggests otherwise. About 13 years ago a burly man sat in a restaurant just outside Cape Town's city centre — he faced the entry points of the establishment as a security measure to watch who approached it. Facing the windows and doors, this man, Andre Naude, spoke about how he and some associates, including his close ally Mark Lifman, were involved in a new security operation focused on nightclubs. 'We're not part of any underworld gangs,' Naude claimed at the time. 'We run a clean operation.' 'I've got a gun on my waist' Naude also said that certain individuals, who believed nightclub security could be dominated through eliminating rivals in the industry, put him at risk. 'It's because of people like… (that) that I've got a security guard outside my house, a gun on my waist and a bulletproof car,' he claimed. 'It's not cowboys and crooks any more.' But Naude's murder, on Thursday, 12 June 2025, suggests otherwise — that he operated with, and among, wannabe cowboys and very real crooks. Naude was gunned down and a second man wounded in a shooting in Cape Town's northern suburbs on Thursday afternoon. The police are investigating. While it was never proven and Naude was not convicted for it, there were suspicions he was involved with the 27s gang and that this angered the 28s gang, which is hellbent on dominating the Western Cape's internationally connected drug trade. There are also long-running suspicions that rogue intelligence agents with ties to politicians and police officers secretly direct gangsters, and that fights among these hidden figures spill over onto the streets and produce violence, including shootings, that plays out in public. Naude's killing comes about seven months after Lifman was assassinated in the Western Cape Town of George. At the time of their murders the duo, along with several other accused including their associate Jerome 'Donkie' Booysen, were on trial for the August 2017 assassination of international steroid smuggler Brian Wainstein, also known as the Steroid King. They denied involvement. Wainstein was suspected of being aligned to the 28s gang — and he and Lifman did not see eye to eye. Naude and Lifman are now among five accused in the Wainstein murder case to have been murdered. Merger after murder This journalist initially interviewed Naude in early 2012, the year after the assassination of organised crime suspect and rumoured apartheid state operative Cyril Beeka, who had dominated nightclub security operations in Cape Town's city centre. Beeka had run a security outfit in Cape Town in the 1990s, and some police officers maintained it was an extortion racket linked to the Italian Mafia. Police investigators had also accused Beeka of using mobs of men to force his 'security' services on establishments. Naude, during the 2012 interview at which a second journalist was also present, explained how certain bouncer operations were merged after Beeka's 2011 killing. That merger produced a security company that Hawks officers promptly shut down over allegations that it was not registered with the Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority. This culminated in Naude and Lifman facing criminal charges. They were later, in 2015, cleared in that case and countered that certain police officers had maliciously targeted them. A while after that saga, nightclub security issues in Cape Town started heating up again. Proxies and suicide bomb claims This led to me again meeting Naude for an interview in November 2016 at another restaurant outside Cape Town's city centre. Naude had claimed an individual from another country — a proxy for an intelligence service of that country — was among those stoking issues in the city. (This individual does not seem to have been arrested in South Africa.) During that interview with Naude, a group of men was seated at a nearby table. Among them was Wainstein — who went on to be assassinated in 2017, a crime for which Naude was among those charged. In June 2017 I again interviewed Naude in person. He made stronger claims this time that the individual from another country — 'he's funded by terrorists' — was smuggling heroin into nightclubs and that suicide bombers would potentially target Cape Town. Naude claimed he had alerted certain police officers about this. While the name of the individual he referenced later cropped up on the periphery of related court issues, Naude's full claims could not be substantiated. At the end of that 2017 interview, Naude said he planned to meet Rashied Staggie, the former head of the Hard Livings gang, to discuss some issues. (Staggie was murdered in Cape Town two years later, in 2019, and 28s gang boss suspect Ralph Stanfield is now accused in connection with that killing.) 'Rivals' Daily Maverick has before reported extensively on what happened in 2017 in relation to nightclub security in Cape Town. Suspected organised crime kingpin Nafiz Modack, who had known Cyril Beeka and seemed to have been aligned with him, allegedly tried to seize control of bouncer operations in the city from Naude, Lifman and their associates. According to police investigators and what surfaced in court cases, clashes between the so-called 'Modack group' and the 'Lifman group' sparked violence in Cape Town from 2017 onwards. Modack was arrested and then acquitted for security service-related matters. He was subsequently rearrested for other crimes and is now in custody and on trial for the murder of policeman Charl Kinnear in Cape Town in September 2020. Gangs and dead ends This journalist's book The Enforcers – Inside Cape Town's Deadly Nightclub Battles provides in-depth detail on how suspicions of criminality in bouncer operations have evolved. It also focuses on gangs, as well as several individuals who have since been murdered or accused of murder. A section references how there was an apparent rift between Jerome Booysen, who was previously accused of heading the Sexy Boys gang (he has not been convicted of this), and his brother Colin, which saw Colin aligning himself with Modack. According to The Enforcers: 'This manoeuvre is what apparently caused fractures within the Sexy Boys — if gangland folklore is to be believed, several members of the gang backed Colin Booysen, leaving Jerome Booysen and the Sexy Boys who stayed with him to pair up with the 27s gang. 'This, according to the unverified tale, is how the two nightclub security factions came to be aligned to two different gangs.' In simpler terms and while not verified, it appeared that Modack and Colin Booysen had Sexy Boys gang support, while their alleged rivals including Booysen and his associates had 27s gang ties. On top of that, Wainstein was viewed as having sided with the 28s gang, which angered the 27s. Somewhat reinforcing these theories is that among those also charged in connection with Wainstein's murder — alongside Naude, Lifman and Booysen — was William 'Red' Stevens, reputed to have been one of the most seasoned 27s gangsters in the Western Cape. In 2021, about a week before he was set to appear in court for the Wainstein murder case, Stevens was shot dead in the Cape Town suburb of Kraaifontein. This means a suspected 27s gang boss, who was facing charges for the murder of Wainstein who was believed to have paired up with the 28s gang, was killed. At face value, this implies deadly fighting between the two gangs — fighting that may persist. DM
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