New breed of criminal simple to spot

A good friend who is also a police officer and a highly successful sleuth, with many convictions to back up his claim, has a simple recipe for success.

In most cases, he says, he achieves breakthroughs because the criminals “bring themselves” to him.

To back up his boast, my friend gives me an example.

He says professional criminals, those individuals whose full-time job is to work in the alternative economy, have set behaviour patterns that he, as a police officer, exploits to crack his cases.

It’s simple, says the detective: after each major robbery criminals will, without failure, spend their loot on new cars, designer clothes, women and the mother of all parties, which may last anything between two to five days.

All the good detective does is to, among others, keep his social radar active and his detective ear to the ground so that he can find out where the next big bash is.

He knows for sure – like night follows day – that criminals will, after a successful heist, hide in plain sight and spend their ill-gotten gains callously because they believe that nothing will happen to them.

They only act in this fashion, he says, because they have become arrogant and believe they are untouchable.

Some in the ANC may describe Julius Malema as a political criminal because he has violated the party’s constitution, and was duly convicted as well as sentenced by the national disciplinary committee.

Malema’s downfall has largely been because the youth leader’s political star has not been the only thing that experienced a meteoric rise.

Malema and those around him have, over the years, became politically powerful and arrogant.

They became so powerful and influential that they arrogantly thought that they were untouchable, politically and otherwise.

Buoyed by the role he played in the defeat of Thabo Mbeki as ANC president, and his removal as head of state, Malema quickly moved from being a kingmaker to someone who seemingly wanted to be king.

Malema has to be given credit for building the ANCYL into a powerful political force within the ANC and South African politics.

However, this power, with time, came with arrogance. And proof of this is in the way in which the ANCYL treated senior ANC members, cabinet ministers and President Jacob Zuma.

It is the arrogance of the ANCYL that forced the hand of the ANC.

In one of worst cases of arrogance and disrespect, ANCYL national executive committee member Floyd Shivambu spoke loudly to those next to him when Zuma was on the podium.

A visibly irritated Zuma stopped his address, turned around and said something like “Ukhuluma nam? (Are you talking to me?)”.

It is surprising how Shivambu was never charged for this public show of disrespect for Zuma and the ANC.

So, it is this arrogance that the ANC could not ignore.

There was no way that the ANC could build and maintain discipline within the ANC while some of its members were flagrantly behaving as if they were above the party’s constitution.

And even the conviction and hefty sentence does not seem to have had any deterrent effect on Malema.

Yes, he says, he will appeal, but he has not found it prudent to humble himself before the ANC, its members and constitution.

Instead, he says that he will fight the conviction and sentence on a legally technical basis. No lessons learnt there.

It is the arrogance associated with Malema’s lifestyle that led to questions being asked. The arrogance could also be found in the manner in which Malema and those around him behaved socially.

How else would the ANCYL believe that he would not attract the attention of the tax and law enforcement authorities when he builds a multimillion-rand mansion when he earns a salary that will not secure him a million-rand bond from the banks?

It can only be because he truly believed that no one would dare ask him how he got his millions.

While the focus is currently on Malema because of the action the ANC has taken against him, the truth is that there are many other ANC cadres out there, almost in all provinces, who are just as arrogant and who live a lifestyle that is far removed from those they lead and represent. And they don’t care a damn.

The luxurious lifestyles, conspicuous consumption, the endless bashes where Johnny Walker Blue Label whisky and other exclusive brands flow as if they are free water rations, can be found everywhere.

So the South African law enforcement agencies and the SA Revenue Service do not have to look far when they want to find potential candidates for wrongdoing.

They present themselves. They are easy to find.

Most of them are young, got rich overnight, drive expensive cars and “hide” in plain sight.