Foreign-owned businesses are increasingly becoming prime targets in South Africa’s growing extortion economy, with Ethiopian and Somali shopkeepers among those facing mounting threats for protection payments.
The scale of the problem was highlighted in a Cape Town court last month, where a South African man and his two sons, including a serving police officer, appeared before a magistrate accused of extorting about 50 convenience stores operated by Ethiopians and Somalis.
A Somali national was also charged in a separate case involving alleged protection-fee collections from shopkeepers in the Stellenbosch area, about 40 kilometres from Cape Town.
The cases have shed light on an expanding criminal economy that targets businesses across South Africa, from construction companies and nightclubs to small neighbourhood shops commonly known as spaza stores.
Foreign-owned spaza shops have faced particular pressure. Earlier this year, scores were looted, burned or forced to close during a wave of xenophobic unrest, as protesters demanded the removal of undocumented foreign nationals.
Community policing officials say foreign shop owners are often seen as easier targets because they may be reluctant to report threats or confront criminal groups.
Extortion gangs typically demand monthly payments in exchange for supposed protection. Those who refuse may face intimidation, robbery, harassment and, in some cases, deadly violence.
The violence has already claimed lives.
In July, at least two foreign nationals were among four people killed in a shooting at a spaza shop in Franschhoek, a popular Western Cape town. That same month, a 31-year-old Somali shopkeeper was shot dead while serving customers at his business in Cape Town’s Bonteheuwel area.
Police have linked both incidents to extortion rather than the xenophobic unrest that swept parts of the country weeks earlier.
The attacks underscore the growing danger facing foreign-owned businesses in South Africa, where extortion and xenophobia are increasingly creating a climate of fear for migrant entrepreneurs.
