South Africa extortion gangs target foreign-owned shops

South Africa extortion gangs are targeting foreign-owned spaza shops, or small convenience stores, around Cape Town, with a recent court case accusing a man, his two sons and a Somali co-defendant of taking money from about 50 Ethiopian- and Somali-run stores.

The defendants appeared before a Cape Town magistrate last month. One of the sons is a police officer. The Somali defendant is alleged to have collected protection fees from shopkeepers outside Stellenbosch, about 40 kilometres from Cape Town.

Fransina Lukas, head of the community policing forum for Western Cape province, said foreign nationals were easier targets because they feared retaliation. She said extortion gangs typically send letters demanding monthly payments and escalate intimidation if shopkeepers refuse.

Police linked two July shootings at spaza shops to extortion: one in Franschhoek that killed four people, including at least two foreign nationals, and another in Cape Town's Bonteheuwel area that killed a 31-year-old Somali shopkeeper.

Police statistics for April to June recorded 112 national cases of protection racket extortion, with the Western Cape accounting for nearly half. The province also recorded 30 of South Africa's 76 murders at spaza shops and 217 gang-related murders in the same period.

Immigrant-run shops were also a focus of xenophobic unrest earlier this year. South African police said that violence was responsible for the deaths of at least four foreign nationals, but police linked the July shop shootings to extortion rather than the unrest.

Acting police minister Firoz Cachalia said in June that extortion had increased in the past few years and that authorities did not yet have all the answers.