GOOD Statement by Brett Herron,
GOOD Secretary-General
03 September 2026
Violent and organised crime in South Africa have skyrocketed since Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings nearly 30 years ago revealed the existence of shadowy relationships between apartheid-era security forces and criminal gangs, and the manufacture of large quantities of street drugs by the then-State’s Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme.
The extent of these criminal networks has never been investigated, and South Africans have never been informed whether the networks were ever dismantled.
Cape Town is considered South Africa’s gang capital.
Cape Town cardiologist, Dr Wouter Basson, who headed the Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme, appears at a sold-out AfriForum Theatre in Pretoria tomorrow, for a chat about Project Coast, a secret military program that developed poisons and germs during the apartheid era.
Among the poisons that Basson manufactured was the active ingredient in Mandrax, as well as Mandrax tablets, which during his period of service was Cape Town’s drug of choice and the stock-in-trade of gang leaders. According to Basson he was trying to use this drug as a crowd-control mechanism.
- 1998, Basson’s involvement in producing street drugs was revealed at a special hearing of the TRC.
- In 1999, Basson was arrested in a police trap after trying to sell 1000 Ecstasy tablets.
- In 2005 he was acquitted on 67 criminal charges linked to Project Coast, including the drug charges.
- In 2013 he was convicted during disciplinary proceedings of the Health Professions Council of South Africa for breaching the ethical standards expected of a medical practitioner, including in the production of Methaqualone (Mandrax). He appealed.
- In 2026, the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria refused Basson leave to appeal against a ruling that he must complete the HPCSA’s long-delayed disciplinary proceedings.
Separate to Basson’s drug-manufacturing activities, the TRC Final Report concluded that the creation, arming and backing of gangs tasked with disrupting the programme of the liberation movement was an official covert policy of the State.
In addition, the TRC reported on the use of Cape Town gangsters by the then-State’s death squad known as the CCB – including in a failed plot to kill Dullah Omar who went on to become the democratic South Africa’s first Minister of Justice.
Because there has been no follow through investigations, South Africans don’t know whether these networks were ever dismantled. Was the State distributing drugs to particular gangs? When the State stopped manufacturing drugs, what happened to their drug facilities? Were their networks dismantled? Was anyone, ever, held accountable?
Rather than bask in the accolades of people homesick for apartheid in the AfriForum Theatre tomorrow, Basson should share what he knows about what happened to his street drug enterprises.
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