Beyond the Big Five cartel — a murky mix of taxi boss ‘Mswazi’, politicians and dodgy private security

Nearly 25 years ago, Pretoria taxi boss Jothan Zanemvula Msibi, who was popularly known as Mswazi, spoke about how certain figures in the industry were carrying out murders, thereby failing to respect lives.

As if underscoring his words, there apparently were “more guns than flowers” at his funeral on 14 January 2024. There were also high-profile politicians, including then police minister Bheki Cele.

Now, even though Msibi has been dead for nearly two years, he has been described as “dangerous” and “ruthless” in relation to killings. He has also been identified as the “president” of the Big Five drug trafficking cartel, whose members are accused of infiltrating the police, politics and the private security industry in South Africa.

The Madlanga Commission of Inquiry and a parallel parliamentary ad hoc committee are investigating these and other accusations in what has become an unprecedented policing scandal. It started erupting in July this year when KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi publicly made a series of astounding accusations. Subsequent allegations include that the Big Five drug cartel was headquartered in Gauteng and operational in the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape. These provinces have seaports that traffickers view as essential for moving drugs.

At the Madlanga Commission about a week ago, police investigators testified about issues linked to the Big Five. An officer, identified as Witness A for safety reasons, alleged that during a murder investigation, national organised crime head Major General Richard Shibiri seemed to try to deter investigators from working the case.

Among the things Shibiri allegedly said was that arrested suspects were connected to “people that are very dangerous”, including Msibi. Witness A described Msibi as a “taxi owner and a ruthless someone in terms of killings. We know him to that extent.”

Read more: Big Five cartel’s dark web of political ties and criminal operations unveiled by Dumisani Khumalo

Witness B, another police investigator, told the Madlanga Commission that a grouping or organisation known as The Firm, and sometimes The Farm, was an umbrella under which the Big Five operated. She alleged that Msibi, who died from an undisclosed illness, had headed it.

Heavyweight brother

Msibi was apparently the brother of Mandla Msibi, who earlier this year resumed his role as ANC treasurer in Mpumalanga after some controversies. A Sunday World article from the time of Msibi’s death said Mandla was mourning his elder brother.

Daily Maverick this week asked Mandla Msibi, via the spokesperson of a foundation in his name, whether he would com­­ment on the Big Five allegations against his brother. “The Msibi family has decided to let Mr JZ Msibi rest and will continue to allow him to rest,” was the response.

Mandla was suspended from the ANC in April 2024 over claims that he had incited a group to protest at the party’s anniversary celebrations in Mbombela in 2024. He was reinsta­ted in July 2025 and resumed his role as provincial treasurer, which he confirmed to Daily Maverick.

In 2021, he claimed that his life had been threatened “many times”. This was around the time he was facing double murder charges, which were provisionally withdrawn in 2022.

Meanwhile, JZ Msibi’s name once cropped up in a media article about a claimed murder plot. IOL first reported on the questionable plot in 2022, saying the target was former (disgraced) State Security Agency boss Arthur Fraser, who had lodged a criminal complaint against President Cyril Ra­­maphosa over the 2020 theft of money at his Phala Phala farm in Limpopo. After Msibi’s death, a Sunday World report named him as the individual supposedly tasked with carrying out the killing. (This was not substantiated.)

Man of many connections

Daily Maverick has established that Msibi was involved in various businesses, including several linked to the transport industry, one to construction and another to a guesthouse. This suggests Msibi had connections to various sectors. Notably, he was an enduring presence in South Africa’s taxi industry. Although some called him a pioneer who pushed for positive change, certain police officers, including witnesses A and B, clearly have very different views of him.

Nearly 25 years ago, Msibi headed the South African Local and Long-Distance Taxi and Bus Organisation, and reportedly spoke about violence in the industry. He was quoted in a news article as saying: “We have failed to respect the most precious gift from God – life. We have murdered innocent people, and communities can no longer respect us.”

Our hearts are broken.
In Bab' Zanemvula Jothan Msibi, we have lost a pioneer, an industry captain and a visionary.

Lala Ngoxolo Ndlondlo, Ndumay'theni, Habine, Cotshwayo, Bahise, Mabuya Kasiwela, Gasa! pic.twitter.com/G8GG9GmxF3

— SANTACO (@SA_Taxis) January 9, 2024

Based on what witnesses A and B recently told the Madlanga Commission, there are some who saw Msibi as among those who, as he said decades ago, “failed to respect” others’ lives.

His funeral in 2024 was apparently well attended by mourners as well as private security officers. Cele, testifying before Parliament’s ad hoc committee about a fortnight ago, recalled being at Msibi’s funeral and told MPs: “There were more guns than flowers… Many of the taxi guys came with helicopters [to] that funeral. They did not drive.”

https://www.tiktok.com/@santaco.national/video/7323646872680221957?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7566548322236941844

Cele explained that the funeral had been on Msibi’s farm, which involved taking many roads to get there. He said among those present was EFF leader Julius Malema.

If what witnesses A and B testified at the Madlanga Commission is found to be true – that Msibi was a ruthless man who ultimately headed the Big Five cartel – it would mean that Cele and Malema attended a senior crime boss’s funeral.

‘Cat’ Matlala and ‘KT’ Molefe

Aside from Msibi, two other Gauteng-based men have so far been publicly accused of being part of the Big Five cartel: Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala and Katiso “KT” Molefe.

Matlala is facing attempted murder and money laundering charges. He tried to appeal against the regional court in Alexandra’s refusal to grant him bail, but the High Court in Johannesburg denied his appeal on Monday, 27 October. 

Matlala had a security company and the judgment said it had “provided protection” to Msibi, who was a rival to another taxi boss, Joe “Ferrari” Sibanyoni. The judgment said Sibanyoni was the target of a botched shooting in Centurion in 2022. It alleged Matlala was connected to that incident. Matlala, according to the judgment, denied involvement in the taxi industry and its related rivalry.

Read more: Registration of ‘Cat’ Matlala’s private security company sparks shakeup at industry watchdog

Cele recently told Parliament that he and Matlala were introduced by Bongani “Mabonga” Mpungose, who was also involved in private security and whose father was a taxi industry boss in KwaZulu-Natal. (Mpungose was murdered in Gauteng earlier this year.) This introduction happened before Matlala was criminally charged, but after the police had raided his home as part of a kidnapping investigation. Cele said Matlala’s security team included 23 former police special task force members, which made the former minister feel that “private security is taking the capabilities of the state”.

Read more: Cele tells Parliament of Beverly Hills Hotel meeting with ‘Cat’ Matlala, who he ‘knew very well’

As for the other alleged Big Five member, Katiso “KT” Molefe, he was recently released from custody on R400,000 bail and is facing charges for allegedly orchestrating various contract killings. Among them is that of Oupa John Sefoka, known as DJ Sumbody, who was murdered in Gauteng in November 2022.

It was recently alleged in Parliament’s ad hoc committee that Sefoka’s killing was among those that may be linked to a R200-million cocaine consignment that was stolen from the Hawks offices in KwaZulu-Natal four years ago. The theft was widely viewed as an inside job.

Molefe, meanwhile, has a background involving drugs – in another country. In 2003, The Guardian reported that he had been sentenced to four years in prison after a house raid in the UK during which ecstasy and cannabis were seized.

Bigger picture

Various sources with knowledge of policing and crime patterns have told Daily Maverick that the Big Five cartel, as presented to the public so far, appears to represent individuals who are not at the top of the syndicate’s trafficking hierarchy. Some suspect the ultimate controlling traffickers may be based in another country and that they may include government operatives or politicians – in South Africa or elsewhere – who are yet to be identified.

Sources have also pointed out that what is emerging from the Madlanga Commission and the parallel parliamentary process highlights what is happening around the country in terms of crime. For example, gang shootings and taxi industry violence appear to have flared up again in the Western Cape.

Read more: Mchunu’s repeated reference to Cape Flats killings underscores the politics-gangsterism nexus

Some of the taxi violence may have links to KwaZulu-Natal. It is suspected that private security operatives there have been involved in getting firearms to the Western Cape to be used in shootings. There are also suspicions that with the focus now more on KwaZulu-Natal’s harbour in Durban, which international traffickers tend to prefer using, drug smugglers have started operating at smaller seaports along South Africa’s coast to try to evade detection. This means local gang activities will also shift to those areas. DM 

History repeats itself: The Firm and the Big Five

A grouping in South Africa called The Firm is said to be the umbrella under which a drug-trafficking cartel known as the Big Five operates. The Firm, sometimes also referred to as The Farm, was allegedly headed by Pretoria taxi boss Jothan Zanemvula Msibi, who died in January 2024.

Among those accused of being part of the Big Five are Gauteng organised crime accused Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala and Katiso “KT” Molefe. Matlala was allegedly approached to fund sidelined police minister Senzo Mchunu’s ambitions to become ANC president or deputy president. Mchunu has denied any wrongdoing.

This has all emerged during hearings into accusations that the Big Five has in­filtrated law enforcement and politics in South Africa. 

But it is not the first time The Firm and the Big Five have been referred to in ­policing circles. A few decades ago, The Firm was known as a gangster conglomerate headed by suspected Western Cape gang boss Colin Stanfield, who died from cancer in 2004. He was believed to have worked with apartheid-era cops and a group of politically connected businessmen in Gauteng, who were under investigation for possible links to an international trafficker, India’s Vicky Goswami, who reportedly had ties to the ANC.

Read more: ‘The Firm’ grip of the 28s – from Colin Stanfield to fresh suspicions shaping SA’s drug scene

Stanfield was the uncle of alleged 28s gang boss Ralph Stanfield, who is now facing various criminal charges in the Western Cape. Police investigators have since accused Ralph of heading The Firm. (It is not clear whether this is linked to the recent accusations about the Big Five.)

As for the Big Five, this is the same name that was given to a group of drug traffickers under investigation in the 1980s and 1990s. According to former police officers, it was noted at that stage that the Big Five were black – their skin colour was a significant factor in apartheid South Africa. Certain members were killed (such as Cape Town’s Bhekizulu Tshabalala, whose body was found in a car boot in 1996), and some never faced criminal charges.

Like the Big Five of today, the one from decades ago also had suspected links to corrupt state officials and to other countries. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.