The gangs risking their lives for copper in South Africa

This is an audio transcript of the FT Weekend podcast episode: ‘The gangs risking their lives for copper in South Africa’

Lilah Raptopoulos
Hi listeners. I am here to invite you to be part of our summer episode, which is coming up soon. We’re having Matt Vella on. He’s the editor of FT Weekend Magazine and basically he and I want to help you have the summer of your lives. So this is what we want. Send us one small thing that you like to do that makes your summer like 90 per cent better. We’ve gotten a lot of really good ones. Someone wrote in: “Quit your job,” which is tempting, but we were thinking more along the lines of buy the mangoes they sell on the street or be the last one on the beach. Anyway, we have a link in our show notes where you can easily record this voice message and send it straight to us. Matt and I will play some of them on the show. OK, on to the show.

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When the journalist Monica Mark arrived in South Africa in 2019, she started hearing about a problem that was plaguing her new neighbourhood almost immediately.

Monica Mark
Everybody in South Africa is affected by copper theft. I moved here about four years ago and I joined my neighbourhood’s WhatsApp group. And you know, those groups are some people who are on all day and it’s lots of chatter. But the one thing that came out consistently that everybody would kind of join in was complaining about when the power would go off either because of copper thieves or because when the lights had gone off, they would kind of under cover of darkness, go and steal more wiring or whatever it was.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Electricity shortages are a problem in South Africa. But this went beyond the usual. Thieves were cutting electrical wiring and it was causing the lights to go out. Specifically, they were cutting wire made out of copper because recycled copper is in really high demand. Monica wanted to write about it, so she started asking everyone she knew if they could connect her to these copper gangs.

Monica Mark
I started off on the WhatsApp group asking people and nobody had any idea where I could find someone like this, obviously. But at the level of the guys who are doing the kind of the actual stealing of copper, you’re going to have to go to certain neighbourhoods, basically.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Eventually, she decided that the best place to look was this specific part of Soweto. Soweto is a famous township in Johannesburg, and that’s where Monica finally connected with a guy. She can’t tell us his real name, but his nickname is TwoSix, like the numbers.

Monica Mark
Even then, it kind of took a while. It didn’t take a while to find someone because these guys are just ordinary South African citizens and they’re amongst everyone. And as I say in the story, they’re kind of gangs going abounds. But it took a while to find someone who was willing to talk. TwoSix was because of his, yeah, his personal circumstances. I think he had made the decision that he was going to be honest and he was going to get his story off his chest and he seemed almost . . . You know, he’s dying. He doesn’t have much time left.

Lilah Raptopoulos
TwoSix brought Monica into the world of the copper gangs. She recently wrote an FT Weekend magazine cover story about him and about how and why people are stealing copper in South Africa. For Monica, TwoSix became a symbol of what happens when people in South Africa don’t have the option of getting a job. That’s a lot of people right now. And today she’s going to tell us about it. This is FT Weekend. I’m Lilah Raptopoulos.

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Monica, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here.

Monica Mark
Hi. Thank you.

Lilah Raptopoulos
So you recently wrote this incredible piece for the FT Weekend magazine. It’s sort of hard to say what it’s about. It’s about a heist that went wrong. But it also felt to me about copper thieves that are sort of struggling to survive. I’m wondering if you can set the scene for our listeners of what in a few sentences the story is about to you.

Monica Mark
Yeah. It’s a story about one man in a township in Johannesburg and how his personal circumstances and poverty leads to addiction, which leads to a life of crime. And then he becomes a copper thief. And the story kind of charts why someone would choose to go into such a dangerous enterprise. But you can kind of draw a line from his personal choices all the way through global crime syndicates in places way beyond the township borders against (inaudible) in Johannesburg.

Lilah Raptopoulos
So the main person that you follow in the story is a man named TwoSix. I’m curious if you can tell us about him, like how he got into copper theft and what his role was.

Monica Mark
So TwoSix is he’s in his thirties now. He has been smoking heroin, a local form of heroin for well over a decade now. He dropped out of school, was a high school dropout, high school dropout by age of 15, and he started smoking this local heroin, which is black-tar heroin cut with all sorts of kind of additives and poison. And yeah, there’s rat poison in there. There’s a lot of ARVs and antiretroviral drugs because when South Africa had an Aids epidemic, these drugs are really powerful and they get you very high and they started flooding the markets. Yeah. So they started mixing up all this stuff and there’s weed in there as well. And South Africa has an epidemic of people using this drug, And TwoSix, unfortunately, got caught in that. And he ended up sort of doing like petty crime. But one day he tried to rob a supermarket because he was hungry and he was high and he ended up being sentenced to prison. And in prison he was mixing with people who were far more hardened criminals. And so that was kind of how he entered this world of copper theft. And yeah, and his story is just really sad and it kind of tells a wider story of so many of the problems that South Africa has right now.

Lilah Raptopoulos
TwoSix or men like him, like, if he doesn’t get into copper robberies and things like that, what are his options, like, for making a living? What is his life?

Monica Mark
So the options are very few is the truth. Unemployment is . . . it’s massive. The official unemployment rate is something like one in three South Africans at working age are out of work, black men in particular, which statistics is obviously about 50 per cent. You know, so to answer the question, what else his options are, there’s always people who would say, well you didn’t have to turn to a life of crime. But I would say that I just feel very fortunate. I’ve never found myself in that position, having to decide what am I going to do to get my next meal?

Lilah Raptopoulos
So TwoSix is someone who can’t see a future. He’s tried over and over to get a job. He’s addicted to drugs. He’s been to prison. But once he’s on the outside, he links up with a guy named Sausages whom he met in prison. And Sausages gives him a job. Not an official job. A job stealing copper. The first time, they steal some wire from a train station warehouse. TwoSix gets paid really well, the equivalent of $2700. Then another job follows. And another. And the next thing he knows, TwoSix is part of a gang of copper thieves. He’s part of Sausages crew. Monica, can you tell me what it means to kind of commit copper theft? Can you give me maybe some examples of the sorts of heists that TwoSix and his colleagues were doing and pulling off?

Monica Mark
Yeah, I did ask him that question once. I said, can you give me a list of the places that he thinks would carry out these kind of crimes? You know, these heists. And he just sort of looks at me and was like, basically sort of was like, it would be shorter if I told you the places we haven’t gone because . . . so anywhere that copper is used, and copper is in . . . it’s in everything to do with construction, anything to do with electronics they’ve got copper wiring. And they went pretty much everywhere that they could find copper. So typically train stations were a favourite for them just because it’s just low hanging fruit basically, and such. The copper wires overhead and they’re on the ground next to the train tracks.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Which meant the train systems were always stopping.

Monica Mark
I think the last figures that I could find for Transnet, which is the national freight company, they were cancelling on, I think this was about a year ago, 21 trains a day.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Wow. So other than trains, they were also, I mean, it sounds like they were taking copper from, like, electrical stations that would kind of cut the power in areas and things like that. Is that right?

Monica Mark
So substations that were doing sort of municipal works, sewage stations, waterworks. So TwoSix kind of described it as like, however, no, we went we never went so far as schools because they are gangs and do target schools again for their kind of the plumbing and the construction. They didn’t do that because they were basically going for, usually, for bigger targets. And these were inside jobs. So they had people kind of load this truck and then you have to drive to a warehouse or to sell it immediately. You don’t want to be sitting around with like hundreds of kilogrammes of copper. Yeah. They were pretty big jobs.

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Lilah Raptopoulos
Here’s the thing about copper. We need it for just about everything. Electronics, construction. We actually need more of it as we transition to renewable energy, because that takes a lot of wiring. And because copper is so valuable, an entire underground industry has sprung up around it. There are people like TwoSix who steal it. There are shops that melt the stolen copper, copper middlemen that sell scraps. And then there are big international gangs that handle the global sales. Monica decided not to get too deep into investigating these gangs, mostly for her own safety. But she shared that they’re not risking their lives quite like TwoSix. Monica, I just, I’d love to go back to the story. TwoSix is working and his gang are two guys with also incredible nicknames, Mafia and Sausages. (laughter)

Lilah Raptopoulos
And the three of them are pulling off these heists. And then one day, something terrible happens. And I’m wondering if you can tell us that story.

Monica Mark
Yeah. So TwoSix didn’t tell me about this. It took a while before he sort of trusted me enough to talk about this. And also when he told me what happened, even though it was maybe a couple of years ago, he was still visibly shaken and traumatised by it. But essentially, if you decide to go into the business of stealing copper, you are risking your life very regularly because you’re not a trained electrician and you don’t know how these things work.

Lilah Raptopoulos
And you’re cutting wire.

Monica Mark
Exactly. And that particular heist, they were all very high and it was raining is the other thing. And I actually called around and asked engineers, do you go and fix substations when it’s raining? And what I was told was, yes, you do because you have to, but it requires a bit more skill and you would sort of send out your best engineers and you have to really know what you’re doing. Anyway, so they went out and it was all a little bit, it’s a bit blurred in TwoSix’s mind what exactly what happened. And I think that’s partly because he was high but also partly just it was such a traumatic thing. But essentially he described it as he looked up and Mafia was standing over wire. They hadn’t agreed. It was to cut that wire, but the wire cutters. And then he pressed it together and it just went boom. And all the lights went out and TwoSix, he was thrown to the ground. And then when he looked up with his head torch, it was, dawn was kind of just breaking. So it was still dark. And he looked up with his head torch and he, I don’t want to be too graphic, but he described what, if you can imagine someone looks like when they have literally been fried to death with a massive jolt of electricity. Yeah. And, but that was a risk that they did take every time they were out there.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. It sounds like that experience kind of changed TwoSix’s life? Like, the course of it?

Monica Mark
It did.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Tell me about it.

Monica Mark
Yeah, I think he sort of realised, like, this is where I either become the kind of person who is willing to accept these risks. He’d been lucky for years. He got away, basically. But at that point, you had to decide, Am I going to keep risking my life? Is this really what I want to be doing with my life? But the sad thing is that when he did make that decision, I think he would say it wasn’t the sad thing. But when he finally decided, I have to quit this and I have to sort of start a new chapter of my life, he found out that he actually had stomach cancer. And there’s not much he can do about it. And, you know, it’s just really sad. He wanted to start fresh, and then he’s found out he didn’t have much time left.

Lilah Raptopoulos
TwoSix having cancer has nothing to do with copper theft. But to Monica, it’s kind of a symbol of the pain he’s lived with all his life. He just can’t catch a break. Even before she found out he was sick, she noticed him holding his left side in pain. It was like he was holding his heart. By the time that Monica met TwoSix, he had moved out of Soweto. He’d also gotten off drugs. He was clean. What was it like to be with TwoSix? You know, what was it like spending time with him?

Monica Mark
He looked unwell. You know, the first time I met him with the person who introduced us, and I didn’t even realise TwoSix was the person. He was, he’s very, he doesn’t take up much space, but I think he’s just kind of...Life has led him to believe that his life has no worth. He doesn’t have worth as a person and he’s really trying to turn that around. You could see in his mind when he talks about these things, he was really trying to analyse who he was and how he got there. But generally we kind of spent a lot of time in KFCs and car parks and just random street corners. He was really nervous about being caught talking to an outsider as well about, you know, gang life. He seemed like a really kind person. So of course, it’s easy for me to say that. And I don’t know what people are directly impacted by his crimes would say.

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Lilah Raptopoulos
Monica says that there really aren’t a lot of solutions to TwoSix’s predicament. At least not until South Africa figures out how to turn things around. The country has had a lot of struggles since apartheid ended. And these days there’s high unemployment and growing corruption and people are frustrated. Things have also gotten worse since the pandemic. A lot of money that was earmarked for fighting Covid just disappeared. The last reason that this is a hard problem to solve is that help isn’t going to come from other countries where this second-hand copper is actually sold. Monica, I’m going to ask you one more question about copper. Everything that we’ve been talking about is happening to feed this international demand for copper. And you said in your piece that some countries now restrict importing recycled copper because so much of the source of it is like questionable or comes from illegal methods. I’m curious if that’s having any effect.

Monica Mark
So that’s all a very theoretical way to stop copper exports. In practice, there’s a very strong argument to be made that it doesn’t work because it’s not just as simple as you kind of, you close your borders and copper stays in the country. Without going into too much detail, there’s sort of tariffs that you charge, and those can have an impact on whether it’s more attractive to steal. Also the thing about those kind of trade embargoes is, one is that they actually don’t work or in South Africa, they’re not working. And two is that, again, because of how widely copper is used, so much of the copper supply streaming is recycled copper and you do need to keep it moving, you know, so it kind of doesn’t make sense in a globalised world to be like, oh, but let’s just keep all our copper. And it would make much more sense to actually control properly what is coming in and out of our country.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah, interesting. Monica, thank you so much for your time. I, you know, you have been reporting in South Africa and even across west Africa for a long time. I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about your career and also just like your thoughts at the end of reporting out this incredible story, like, how do you feel about South Africa?

Monica Mark
Yeah. So South Africa was super interesting for me to arrive here in 2019. I arrived here with BuzzFeed News. I had been in west Africa prior to that. And then I joined the New York Times. I was bureau chief. And so South Africa was kind of a shock to me, partly just because it is far more advanced than anywhere in west Africa. It is the most developed sub-Saharan African country. But it was also a shock because it’s like taking, like, I don’t know, like New Zealand, a really advanced economy and then somewhere that’s not very developed. And if you were to mash those two countries together, you would end up with something like South Africa. It has the biggest inequality gap in the world. And it’s really jarring to see it the way you see it here. And it’s strange just to be here at this time as well, because obviously it’s been, it’s been almost 30 years since apartheid ended. And a lot of the problems, especially the structure and the way the country was structured to just benefit one massive group at the top. You can see the effects of that daily. But you have had a liberation form and liberation party in power for almost 30 years now and things are in a really dire state economically, socially. So it feels like it’s on the brink of something, not necessarily something great. And kind of how this chapter plays out. It’s really interesting as a journalist to be here.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. I guess my last question is like, what did you leave this reporting feeling?

Monica Mark
It’s not that hard to just sit and listen to people. And that’s what I kind of do. It’s my job and I’m really lucky. And I’m really lucky that at the end of the day I also get to go home. Because I try and put myself in their shoes, you know, so I can write about what they’re really feeling. But it’s difficult to be in that headspace and they’re in it. They haven’t got any other life to go to. So I just feel very privileged, I think, and I really try and respect that and respect that they trusted me enough to tell their story.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. It was a very moving story. Monica, and we’re grateful to have you here. So thank you so much for telling it . . . 

Monica Mark
Thank you.

Lilah Raptopoulos
 . . . on the show.

Monica Mark
Thank you.

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Lilah Raptopoulos
That’s the show this week. Thank you for listening to FT Weekend, the life and arts podcast of the Financial Times. We’re excited to have as many of you as we can in an upcoming episode, so remember to send in that one thing that you like to do during the summer that makes your summer incredible. The link for how to contact us is in the show notes. Also in the show notes is a link to an excellent discount on an FT subscription that is also at FT.com/weekendpodcast. Make sure to use that link. As you know, it’s great to hear from you in all capacities. You can email us at ftweekendpodcast@ft.com. The show is on Twitter @FTWeekendPod and I am on Instagram and Twitter @Lilahrap. I’m Lilah Raptopoulosand here’s my incredible team, Katya Kumkova is our senior producer. Lulu Smyth is our producer. Molly Nugent is our contributing producer. Our sound engineers are BreenTurner and Sam Giovinco with original music by Metaphor Music. Topher Forhecz is our executive producer and our global head of audio is Cheryl Brumley. Have a beautiful weekend and we’ll find each other again next week.