Description
André Lincoln’s life exposes the dirty ploys that have swung South Africa’s trajectory; how street-level killings could be flashpoints of deep state proxy wars; and raises suspicions about who in Nelson Mandela’s realm backstabbed whom.
His career represents local and global criminal investigations that span decades and involve nefarious individuals, from an informant once close to Colombia’s Pablo Escobar, to several suspected Cape Town crime kingpins.
In the mid-1990s, Mandela hand-picked Lincoln to head a secret unit that would explore the nexus between government and gangsters. But the unit ruptured because of accusations in 1997 that Lincoln was running a rogue operation and colluding with the Italian Mafia. Lincoln countered that apartheid-era cops framed him to cover up their involvement in crimes, pre- and post-democracy.
He was first convicted but later vindicated in a case that dislodged the names of some of South Africa’s highest-ranking politicians and senior government agents.
With exclusive access to Lincoln, journalist Caryn Dolley uncovers the electrifying dynamics of undercover work – first against the state, then for it; she delves into court cases and through years of reporting and research exposes, for the first time and in full, the sordid scandal – with Lincoln at its centre – that has lacerated the South African Police Service and implicated some of the country’s top cops and politicians.
