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Security during the South African Police Service (SAPS) Anti-Gang Unit launch at Downsberg Sport Field, Hanover Park, on 02 November 2018 in Cape Town, South Africa. (Photo: Gallo Images / Brenton Geach)
Ernest “Ernie Lastig” Solomon, a former gang leader of 28 and whose name was most recently linked to the Terrible Josters gang, was something of a chameleon, seemingly trying to get rid of the gang boss image by reinventing himself. himself as a peacemaker and musician. . But now his name is on a growing list of murders linked to organized crime and high-level investigations into them.
Ernest “Ernie Lastig” Solomon, a 28-year-old former gang leader whose name was previously linked to the perlemoen trade and other alleged crimes, was killed in Boksburg, Gauteng, on Friday, more than six months after being wounded in a shooting. in the fishing village of Hawston in the Western Cape.
Sources said his murder was inevitable as his name had been popping up for months on matters related to dubious activities, including a massive court case centered on his nephew Horatio “Voudie” Solomon, who was charged with crimes such as murder and being the leader of the Terrible Josters gang. The state believes that this gang is deeply involved in the tik and mandrax trade.
“It was meant to end this way,” said a source, referring to Solomon’s murder.
Another said several gang members still referred to him as “the beginning of the number and the end of the number”(Referring to the numerical bands) and“ Number one ”.
It was feared that Solomon’s assassination would trigger retaliatory attacks or cause the gangs to reconfigure, which would later cause friction between rival groups.
Horatio Solomon, who was injured and his 13-year-old daughter was killed in a shooting in March this year, was Sentenced to live in prison in Western Cape Superior Court in October.
Solomons and a son had been injured in a shooting in Hawston, approximately two months after Horatio was injured, in May of this year; this was believed to have been a result of friction inside the Terrible Josters gang.
“The Terrible Josters are constantly involved in gang wars in areas where drug trafficking operations take place and once rival gangs are wiped out or surrender, the remaining rival gang members join the gang and then they add the prefix ‘Terrible’ to the name of the gang “, It reads in the court documents related to the case of Horatio Solomon.
“To safeguard its interests, the gang, through its members, will possess and use illegal firearms, will commit murder or attempted murder, and acts of intimidation against witnesses, who may be rival gang members or ordinary members of the community.”
Ernie Solomon’s murder comes two months later Lieutenant Colonel Charl Kinnear of the Anti-Gang Unit was killed outside his home in Cape Town’s suburb of Bishop Lavis (an area widely known to be gang territory of the 28), a murder that has raised suspicions of entrenched corruption among police and his alleged ties to the underworld. figures.
It also marks nearly a year since another major figure in Cape Town’s gang landscape, former Hard Livings leader Precipitous staggie, was shot and killed in the Salt River suburb of Cape Town in December 2019.
At the time, rumors had emerged that Solomon, or someone close to him, might have had something to do with Staggie’s murder.
But Solomon was not charged for the murder. Other theories about Staggie’s murder included that he had somehow been mistaken for younger gangsters who wanted to teach older figures a lesson: that they were no longer in control.
It is not yet clear who was behind Solomon’s murder.
On Friday, police spokesman Capt Kay Makhubele, without providing a name, said one person had been killed and three others, including a child, were injured in a morning shooting in Boksburg.
Four suspects are believed to have been involved.
“A white Ford Ranger is reported to have collided and intercepted a white BMW with four occupants inside. Two armed men allegedly got out of the Ford Ranger and started shooting at the car, ”Makhubele said.
“The suspects allegedly abandoned the Ford Ranger at the scene and fled in a getaway car with unknown description and unknown registration number.”
Solomon has been closely linked to organized crime and gangsterism.
In the mid-1990s among a group that started the controversial grouping Community outreach, better known as Core, in Cape Town, a now-defunct organization apparently aimed at stunting gangsterism, but which some later pointed to as a smokescreen for crime.
Others involved in Core included Rashied Staggie and brothers Michael and Jerome “Donkie” Booysen (who was shot and wounded several times between 2017 and 2018 in Cape Town).
In 2003, the police labeled Solomon, who at one point faced charges that included possession of firearms without a license, as a flier.
But several years later, around 2011, Solomon apparently tried to get rid of this image by trying to prevent crimes: he had been involved in so-called peace talks to try to call for a truce between the warring gangs in Cape Town. The mayor of the city, Dan Plato, then the Community Safety MEC, was involved in some of these processes.
Then in 2013 Solomon was the focus of a movie, A lucky man, about his life, and in the following years, he dabbled in music and released some albums. About two years later, it was reported that he was a Khoi chief.
But more recently, his name had once again been linked to more sinister issues.
It was previously reported that in the case against Horatio Solomon, which was heard in the Western Cape Superior Court in 2019 and this year, a witness had claimed that Solomon had ordered 2013 assassination of Leon Davids in retaliation for the murder of the underworld boss Cyril Beeka.
Beeka was killed in an attack in the Cape Town suburb of Bellville South in March 2011.
Davids was widely suspected of having pulled the trigger on Beeka.
In the state summary of the events against Horatio Solomon, it was further stated that the Terrible Josters gang was involved in the murder of Davids.
It was alleged that a defendant in the Terrible Josters case, centered on Horatio Solomon, had contacted a State witness “and informed him that he had received an instruction that Leon Davids (alias Leontjie) should be killed.”
“The reason Leontjie should be killed was because he and another person had murdered Cyril Beeka, who was linked to his main leader and given him information about a leader of a competing gang,” the state witness was allegedly told. .
However, the state’s witness and an associate had failed to carry out the murder because Davids was not where they thought he would be: a braai in the suburb of Belhar.
It was claimed that “the mission” to assassinate Davids was allegedly handed over to Horatio Solomon.
Davids was assassinated on October 9, 2013, but arrests for this murder were never officially announced.
If Davids had murdered Beeka, it meant that a possible star witness for the state (if he had decided to turn around and testify on behalf of the state in the case, as it was rumored to have been the case before his murder) had been murdered.
On a Facebook page that appears to be Ernest Solomon’s, a quote was posted on Thursday.
It said (translated from Afrikaans): “If I look at my life today, where I was, where I am now, what happened … I think it was just grace, amen, thank you Lord.” DM
