Watch â Beyond the Big Five cartel: Unmasking South Africaâs true narco kingpins

This story has significance for readers across Africa and beyond.

In 2025 a senior policeman made striking accusations that a drug cartel had infiltrated South Africaâs criminal justice system, politics and private security. This sparked high-level law enforcement suspensions and arrests, totally reconfiguring the countryâs policing. This unprecedented crisis runs much deeper, though, and has been decades in the making. Daily Maverickâs Caryn Dolley reports.

Reporting by: Caryn Dolley

Edited by: Joel Seboa

Filmed by: Joel Seboa

Produced by: Emilie Gambade

Creative input by: Malibongwe Tyilo

Sub-edited by: Mike van Olst

***

Narcotrafficking has always circled dangerously close to the South African state.

How exactly did South Africa get to the point where we keep hearing allegations that state officials â police officers â are working with traffickers, and that politicians are implicated too? Who planted these seeds?

Iâve spent around 15 years investigating these toxic networks. To understand all this, we need to go back much further â to the apartheid government, because thatâs where many of these roots lie.

The apartheid government manufactured drugs, including Mandrax, and planned to use it on Black and brown communities as a form of âcrowd control.â There have also long been suspicions that, beyond apartheid officials themselves, some of those fighting the regime turned to drug dealing to help finance their struggle against the racist state.

That was pre-1994.

Around that time, Vijaygiri Anandgiri Goswami, better known as Vicky Goswami, enters the picture.

Born in India, he later moved to Zambia, a country with close ties to South Africa because many ANC activists lived there in exile during apartheid. Goswami was once quoted telling a journalist: âI know a number of ANC members. Remember, I contributed to the ANC when I was in Zambia.â

He then moved to South Africa, where he was suspected of Mandrax trafficking and allegedly operating alongside various local figures.

Several were murdered. One of them simply disappeared.

Goswami subsequently left South Africa, popped up in Dubai and was arrested there in 1997 for Mandrax crimes. He was convicted and admitted that while jailed there he was still deeply involved in Mandrax connected to South Africa.

After Goswami was released from a Dubai prison in 2012, he moved to Kenya where he partnered with two brothers, Baktash and Ibrahim Akasha.

He says that together they were hellbent on dominating South Africaâs drug trade and alleges they even orchestrated killings in this country.

That was around 2012 to 2016.

In 2017 the Goswami and the Akashas were extradited to the United States where they faced criminal charges â the Akashas were jailed there, and Goswami became a state witness.

Why didnât South Africa act against them when they were clearly involved in deadly drug activities here? Itâs unclear.

Thatâs the Vicky Goswami crew. They werenât alone.

Letâs move on to Ernest Solomon, better known as Ernie Lastig.

He was suspected of heading a gang known as the Terrible Josters, although his supporters may tell you that this is nonsense and he was actually a reformed gangster pushing for others to ditch criminality too.

That aside, there are suspicions that Solomon was deeply involved in South Africaâs Mandrax trade and wanted to be dominant.

This is the same noxious arena Goswami threw his weight around. Who knows, maybe the pair clashed.

Solomon was based in South Africaâs gang violence capital the Western Cape; he was fatally shot in Gauteng in November 2020.

As I speak now, police have not announced any arrests for Solomonâs killing. Suspicions include that someone in the taxi industry ordered the hit.

Hereâs the thing.

In July 2025, when senior policeman Nhlanhla Mkhwanzi held a press conference and alleged a drug cartel had infiltrated South Africaâs criminal justice sector, he said that the cartel is headquartered in Gauteng.

Weâve since heard police officers identify the cartel as the Big Five.

Enter corruption convict Vusimuzi âCatâ Matlala.

Aside from pleading guilty to some charges in mid-2026 and still facing various others, heâs been accused of being a member of the Big Five cartel. So too has taxi industry heavyweight Jothan Msibi, who died a few years ago.

Matlala is, and Msibi was, Gauteng-based.

Thatâs the province Ernest âErnie Lastigâ Solomon was murdered in.

Now, certain police officers say the Big Five, headquartered in Gauteng, has hubs, including the Western Cape.

These two key provinces donât just connect the Big Five, they clearly link to Solomon, and even to Vicky Goswami, and several other local and international figures.

These individuals are spread out across the globe, and the deadly activities theyâve tried to hide, date back decades.

Iâve spent years investigating and exposing these networks,much of which Iâve brought together in my book, The Untouchables: Drug Lords, Dirty Cops, and South Africaâs Darkest Secrets.

It traces individuals, relationships, criminal networks, and political shifts that have shaped South Africaâs illicit drug trade over time.

Think Goswami, Solomon, murdered crime accused Mark Lifman, DJ killings, exploited private security, sinister smear campaigns, offshore drug deals, taxi industry treachery, really dirty policing, plus cartels from Brazil, Mexico and countless other countries â itâs all connected.

Itâs all a continuation.

In fact, while the staggering Big Five cartel infiltration accusations in South Africa are relatively new, itâs definitely not the first time the Big Five has reared its head here.

Iâll continue reporting on these issues through Daily Maverick, looking at the global trafficking networks and local consequences that continue to affect everyday life. DM

Reporting originally appeared via Daily Maverick. Read the full source for additional context.