Ivan Waldeck: From gang leader to guiding light
Ivan Waldeck's book is now for sale
Image: Supplied
Once a feared gangster and convicted murderer, Ivan Waldeck has become one of South Africa's most powerful voices for change. His newly released autobiography, The Gates of Hell, tells the unflinching story of how a life shaped by poverty, violence and addiction was turned into a mission of hope, healing and transformation.
Born and raised in Tiervlei-Ravensmead, Cape Town, Waldeck was no stranger to hardship. Losing both his father and twin siblings at a young age, he grew up in a shack with a single mother trying to hold the family together. With poverty all around and violence on every corner, gangsterism seemed less like a choice and more like a means of survival. He joined young and rose quickly, driven by a desire for power and protection in a brutal environment.
His life is a story few would believe if it weren't told in his own words. Now, Waldeck is using his past not for pity or pride, but to pave a way out for those still trapped in the violent cycle he narrowly escaped.
Waldeck's criminal rise brought him face to face with some of the Western Cape's most feared figures — including Rashied Staggie, leader of the Hard Livings gang. But in an unexpected twist, years later, the two men would work together toward a different kind of legacy: helping others break free from the same destructive lifestyle they once embodied.
While imprisoned, Waldeck began to experience a radical shift. A brief yet life-altering encounter with Nelson Mandela at Pollsmoor Prison became a moment of reckoning. What followed was years of soul-searching, transformation and the painful work of reconciliation — both with himself and those he had hurt.
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Ivan Waldeck shared personal accounts of his most darkest moments
Image: Supplied
'The reason for this book was our young men dying every week on our streets,' Waldeck says. 'Mothers' tears moved me to give hope to our young generation and make them aware that there is a way out of gangs.'
The Gates of Hell, which took two years to write, is raw, unfiltered, and rooted in truth — not glorifying gang life, but exposing its devastating toll. Waldeck doesn't write as a victim or a hero, but as someone who has lived the darkness and chosen the light. 'I took every opportunity to better my life and build a future for my children — and to reach out to those in need to exit the life of crime.'
He now leads the Cape Transformation Centre, a non-profit organisation committed to helping others find a way out. The centre's flagship programme, EXIT, supports individuals seeking to leave gangs and overcome addiction. It offers a structured 12-step recovery process for drug users, alongside counselling and guidance for reintegration into communities.
Waldeck is also deeply committed to prevention. 'My goal is for The Gates of Hell to become a comprehension book for Grade 8 students in South African schools,' he explains. 'To inform them and warn them not to be involved in crime and gangs.'
Rashieda Staggie with Ivan Waldeck and his wife Nathasha
Image: Supplied
He recalls haunting scenes from his time in prison, where boys barely into their teens were thrown into a world they weren't ready for. 'I saw young men who couldn't stand their ground. They were abused in different ways, and many times it's too late to intervene. I remember one gangster who hanged himself because he couldn't deal with the 'Numbers' system and their requirements.'
Waldeck, now a husband, father, and community leader, remains grounded in the belief that change is possible — not just for individuals, but for entire communities. 'We must appreciate those who care,' he said. 'Because sometimes, that's all it takes to stop someone from falling.'
The Gates of Hell is more than a personal memoir. It's a beacon of possibility for those society has written off, a tool for educators and community leaders, and a rallying cry for a nation battling crime and youth disillusionment.
The Gates of Hell by Ivan Waldeck is available now in print and digital formats. For schools, churches, community organisations and anyone passionate about social justice and second chances, this is a book that demands to be read — and shared.
tracy-lynn.ruiters@inl.co.za
Weekend Argus
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IOL News
15-05-2025
- IOL News
Ivan Waldeck: From gang leader to guiding light
Ivan Waldeck's book is now for sale Image: Supplied Once a feared gangster and convicted murderer, Ivan Waldeck has become one of South Africa's most powerful voices for change. His newly released autobiography, The Gates of Hell, tells the unflinching story of how a life shaped by poverty, violence and addiction was turned into a mission of hope, healing and transformation. Born and raised in Tiervlei-Ravensmead, Cape Town, Waldeck was no stranger to hardship. Losing both his father and twin siblings at a young age, he grew up in a shack with a single mother trying to hold the family together. With poverty all around and violence on every corner, gangsterism seemed less like a choice and more like a means of survival. He joined young and rose quickly, driven by a desire for power and protection in a brutal environment. His life is a story few would believe if it weren't told in his own words. Now, Waldeck is using his past not for pity or pride, but to pave a way out for those still trapped in the violent cycle he narrowly escaped. Waldeck's criminal rise brought him face to face with some of the Western Cape's most feared figures — including Rashied Staggie, leader of the Hard Livings gang. But in an unexpected twist, years later, the two men would work together toward a different kind of legacy: helping others break free from the same destructive lifestyle they once embodied. While imprisoned, Waldeck began to experience a radical shift. A brief yet life-altering encounter with Nelson Mandela at Pollsmoor Prison became a moment of reckoning. What followed was years of soul-searching, transformation and the painful work of reconciliation — both with himself and those he had hurt. Video Player is loading. 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Next Stay Close ✕ Ivan Waldeck shared personal accounts of his most darkest moments Image: Supplied 'The reason for this book was our young men dying every week on our streets,' Waldeck says. 'Mothers' tears moved me to give hope to our young generation and make them aware that there is a way out of gangs.' The Gates of Hell, which took two years to write, is raw, unfiltered, and rooted in truth — not glorifying gang life, but exposing its devastating toll. Waldeck doesn't write as a victim or a hero, but as someone who has lived the darkness and chosen the light. 'I took every opportunity to better my life and build a future for my children — and to reach out to those in need to exit the life of crime.' He now leads the Cape Transformation Centre, a non-profit organisation committed to helping others find a way out. The centre's flagship programme, EXIT, supports individuals seeking to leave gangs and overcome addiction. It offers a structured 12-step recovery process for drug users, alongside counselling and guidance for reintegration into communities. Waldeck is also deeply committed to prevention. 'My goal is for The Gates of Hell to become a comprehension book for Grade 8 students in South African schools,' he explains. 'To inform them and warn them not to be involved in crime and gangs.' Rashieda Staggie with Ivan Waldeck and his wife Nathasha Image: Supplied He recalls haunting scenes from his time in prison, where boys barely into their teens were thrown into a world they weren't ready for. 'I saw young men who couldn't stand their ground. They were abused in different ways, and many times it's too late to intervene. I remember one gangster who hanged himself because he couldn't deal with the 'Numbers' system and their requirements.' Waldeck, now a husband, father, and community leader, remains grounded in the belief that change is possible — not just for individuals, but for entire communities. 'We must appreciate those who care,' he said. 'Because sometimes, that's all it takes to stop someone from falling.' The Gates of Hell is more than a personal memoir. It's a beacon of possibility for those society has written off, a tool for educators and community leaders, and a rallying cry for a nation battling crime and youth disillusionment. The Gates of Hell by Ivan Waldeck is available now in print and digital formats. For schools, churches, community organisations and anyone passionate about social justice and second chances, this is a book that demands to be read — and shared. Weekend Argus
Daily Maverick
29-04-2025
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The takedown of a terror group destabilising SA's new democracy
David Africa describes in a tell-all book how Pagad, the violent vigilante group, was taken down. Few who lived then will forget that mid-winter night of 4 August 1996 when notorious Hard Livings gang leader, Rashaad Staggie, was publicly lynched and set ablaze with petrol by a People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (Pagad) mob outside his house in Salt River. The early democratic years and the giddy build-up to 2000 with its expected Y2K bogeys were as dangerous as they were thrilling. In the aftermath of apartheid, malevolent currents still swirled. Standing in the crowd that night in August was David Africa, his head wrapped in a scarf to conceal his identity, hanging back to watch the heavily armed Pagad crowd rile itself up. Standing alongside Africa was 'Martin', a cop from the old order. Africa, who had been assigned to the 'extremist desk' in Crime Intelligence, had seen this violence coming. On 2 August, two days before the march on Staggie's house, he had written an intelligence alert. Pagad and Qibla, a Shi'a and Sunni Islamist political and paramilitary organisation founded by Ahmed Cassim in 1979, had for some time participated in increasingly violent rhetoric accompanied by bloodshed. Cassim, who died in 2023, had been incarcerated on Robben Island at the age of 17 and spent most of his adult life behind bars. He was an inspiration to many of the militants who rose through the organisation's ranks. The Staggie hit and the assassination of 24 drug dealers by Pagad led to the group's classification as a violent vigilante group with a militia, the G-Force, intent on spreading terror across the city. Two days before the attack on Staggie (his twin brother, Rashied, was murdered in 2019), Africa made a request to the then Western Cape Crime Intelligence management for police reinforcements. The warning was ignored. The story in full Lives on the Line (African Perspectives Publishing) is Africa's insider account, an intelligence operative's coming in from the trenches to excavate an important, overlooked thread in a saga that threatened to destabilise South Africa's young democracy. In his 2023 account of the times, Breaking the Bombers, Mark Shaw, director of the University of Cape Town's Centre for Criminology and South African National Research Council chair in security and justice, noted 'it seems unthinkable that this story has never been told in full'. Africa is the executive director of the African Centre for Security and Intelligence Praxis, a 'think-and-do-tank' specialising in national security and intelligence. He left government employment in 2001. In her foreword, former minister of state security Ayanda Dlodlo notes that Africa tells this story from 'the inner sanctum' of the state security apparatus. The lessons contained in the book, she writes, 'are essential food for thought for anyone interested in the development of capable state institutions and the safety of our communities'. The failure to predict the July 2021 insurrection after Jacob Zuma's incarceration indicates, she says, a 'lack of foresight and political leadership that ignored the warnings […] from the security community'. Dlodlo adds that had the capabilities that had been nurtured in hunting down Pagad been sustained, 'the likelihood of such a security and political disaster would have been greatly reduced'. The war ramps up Between 1996 and 2001, Pagad and its armed wing, the G-Force, ramped up its cloaked campaign of a 'war on drugs and gangs' and began targeting state officials and setting off pipe bombs at high-profile civilian targets and synagogues. 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He was from Manenberg – the Manenberg of Dullah Omar, the Manenberg of the Cape Flats riddled with gangs, a working-class neighbourhood where Muslim and Christian lived and continue to live side by side and intermarry. So he knew the terrain, its customs, its protocols. Operation Lancer It was the intervention of then national police commissioner Jackie Selebi that finally got the ball rolling. In a 15-minute private meeting with the commissioner, Africa was given the green light. 'Selebi had two questions and asked that I be frank when responding. His first question was to the point. 'Can you guys solve the Pagad problem in the next six months?' ' Africa writes that his reply was slightly less direct: 'Yes, we can, Chief, but we must be allowed to operate unhindered by the rest of the organisation [Crime Intelligence].' Selebi instantly understood and asked what resources the team needed. And so Operation Lancer was born, 'not just a top-down directive, but a collaborative effort that had evolved through a series of conversations'. Africa writes it was 'the first counterterrorism operation in post-apartheid South Africa conceived […] and almost entirely commanded by officers from the former ANC intelligence and military structures'. The operation had been conceived with Tim Williams, Dramat, Petros and Lalla during a bush retreat at Maleoskop in Limpopo. At that point Steve Tshwete, who had spent time on Robben Island with Qibla's Cassim, was police minister. Dynamic and complex Tshwete had been of the opinion that the team should target the Qibla leadership, but Africa knew the relationship between Pagad and the militants was both dynamic and complex. It was this understanding that would crack the campaign of terror. Operation Lancer was distinguished from previous police operations by the implementation of a single, integrated command of all the SAPS antiterror intelligence teams. Investigators were now all available to the new covert unit, extending their range and including a mobile unit that kept everything 'in perpetual motion'. 'Wherever the G-Force conducted their affairs, literally and figuratively, they could be sure that we'd be making aggressive attempts to hear, watch and track them,' writes Africa. First the bombers needed to be taken down, followed by the senior G-Force members who facilitated the organisation's security council decisions. Then individuals could be targeted. As Africa points out, espionage is the second-oldest profession – after prostitution. Let's just say a high-up Pagad leader was having multiple affairs and encounters. As a highly religious man, exposure would have shattered his reputation. The break came after some crafty tagging of this suspected bomber. But we won't give away any spoilers. There are also moments of lightness: Africa shares a hilarious account of how he was once forced to report back to Selebi while laying on the carpet of his office because of his aching back. Although many who served in this unique operation found themselves politically compromised in future years, their contribution at the time should be acknowledged. The success of the operation came with the arrest of the bombers who had planned another attack in Durbanville, which involved a bomb hidden in a flower pot outside the Keg and Swan. Members of the covert unit took considerable risks while trying to take down Pagad, enduring disruptions to their lives. Africa's family was targeted while his wife at the time was pregnant. All made sacrifices for the cause, which, in the end, was successful. His book, says Africa, is 'the story of an intelligence team that whittled away at Pagad until we brought down a seemingly invincible colossus. It is a narrative of six intense and dangerous years spent at the coalface of the struggle to neutralise Pagad, bring its terrorist campaign to a swift end, and bring the perpetrators of murder and mayhem to justice.' Africa writes, as he says, from the perspective of 'a black intelligence officer who grew up in a community ravaged by the very gangs and drugs that Pagad used to legitimise its violence'. DM Key figures Pagad Abdus-Salaam Ebrahim – central to the formation of Pagad. Jailed from December 1999 to 2000 Ali 'Phanton' Parker – part of the early leadership Abdurazak Ebrahim – spiritual leader Achmat Cassiem – founder and leader of Qibla and initially active in the vigilante group Aslam Toefy – public relations face of Pagad Ebrahim Jeneker – the group's best assassin, imprisoned in 2002, released in 2020 and imprisoned again in 2022 Moegsien Barendse – Pagad's Grassy Park cell leader Law enforcement Jackie Selebi – South African Police Service (SAPS) national commissioner Arno Lamoer – senior SAPS officer Leonard Knipe – notorious anti-apartheid detective and head of the serious violent crimes unit in Cape Town Bennie Lategan – detective who worked on Pagad cases David Africa and Anwa Dramat – members of the undercover operations unit that blew open the organisation Mzwandile Petros – then head of the undercover operations unit Frank Gentle – bomb disposal expert who disarmed a device outside the Keg and Swan in Bellville in November 2000 Arthur Fraser – head of the National Intelligence Agency in the Western Cape from 1998 until 2004
IOL News
24-04-2025
- IOL News
Father's heartfelt plea for justice after daughter's brutal murder by gang members
Police at the crime scene in Manenberg, where the body of Khuselwa Ntshanga was found dumped in a wheelie bin. Image: Supplied Nobody deserves to die like that." These are the words of the grief-stricken father of a Gugulethu woman who was strangled to death and dumped in a wheelie bin, allegedly by members of the Hard Livings gang. Months after the horrific murder which rocked Manenberg, the father of Khuselwa Ntshanga has spoken out, calling on the court to keep the alleged killers behind bars as the family struggles to come to grips with her death. Slain Khuselwa Ntshanga Image: supplied The body of the 29-year-old woman, known as Coco, was discovered on March 6 as commuters walking along Duinefontein Road, across the canal, saw the legs of the woman inside the bin as the rubbish was removed. As police photographers arrived on the scene, the body was removed and this is when cops discovered Ntshanga's body. On the same day, Sergeant Daryl van Noie retraced her movements and discovered that she was last seen alive at a property in Hurricane Street. Police descended on the house which is reportedly run as a drug den for the Hard Livings gang and busted the home owner Denver Paulse. To date police have arrested Paulse, Shaheem van Schalkwyk, Zubair Moses, Nizaam Caesar and Logan Bloys for the murder. The determined detective also recovered the rope used to strangle her and it was discovered that the Hard Livings gang suspected her of being a spy for the Fancy Boys gang and even set her on fire before dumping the bin in the canal. Denver Paulse Image: supplied Dad, Mbuyiselo Ntshanga, 59, says he will never forget the day he was called to inform him that his child had been murdered. As the family arrived on the scene, her body had already been removed and they arrived at the police station where they were informed of the horrific details. Ntshanga was buried a week later at Maitland Cemetery as police hunted down the alleged killers. Shaheem van Schalkwyk Image: supplied The heartbroken father says: "We were and still are shocked at the way she died. As the case unfolds we have learnt of the disturbing details and we are devastated. Nobody deserves to die like that." He shared that his daughter struggled with a drug addiction for many years and various interventions by the family failed. "It started in high school with cigarettes and later she started using drugs. We found out and immediately took action. Zubair Moses Image: supplied "She didn't want to go to rehab but we moved her to Johannesburg where she was completing her studies and was doing quite well. "We later learnt that she had a boyfriend who sells drugs and she was brought back to Cape Town and was again doing very well until she got involved with these gangsters." The case has been postponed to May 23 as all the accused have abandoned their bail applications. Cape Argus
