Prowling the fairways of Fancourt Golf Estate, his sandy blond hair swept back and designer sunglasses donned, Mark Lifman presented himself as an old-school businessman.
Ever-circling bodyguards were perhaps the only hint of a more sinister side to the South African.
Yet the 57-year-old was alone when he was assassinated in broad daylight last month.
Hitmen had reportedly stalked Lifman for months before opening fire from a white VW Golf as he walked back to his car at Garden Route Mall in South Africa’s Western Cape on Nov 3.
Johann Jacobs, 53, and Gert “Johnny” Bezuidenhout, 37, were arrested five hours later driving between Willowmore and Uniondale with disguises of dresses, bras and wigs in the boot.
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The pair will spend Christmas behind bars after their bail applications were postponed to 2025.
Lifman was killed a day before he was meant to take the stand co-accused of murdering “Steroid King” Brian Wainstein at his home in Constantia on 18 Aug 2017.
Wainstein, who previously lived in Ireland, was shot five times as he slept beside his partner and two-year-old child.
The state claimed Lifman had financed the murder after clashing with Wainstein over investments and property, feeling he was “getting greedy”.
Lifman’s killing is said to have triggered a surge in gangland violence to fill a power vacuum left by his demise.
Dubbed the Don of Sea Point, Lifman was viewed by many as a gentleman’s mobster, running security services, avidly playing poker and allegedly branching out into racketeering and murder.
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While it remains unclear who orchestrated the hit, fingers have pointed to a gangland feud, suspects have fled and blood is in the water in the Cape Town area once again.
Ryan Cummings, an organised crime expert and director of Signal Risk, which specialises in security risk analysis on the African continent, said Lifman projected himself as floating above the chaos of organised crime.
“He was flamboyant, dressed well, and looked after himself. He did not cut the figure of a typical South African gangster,” Mr Cummings told The Telegraph, adding: “As I see it, Mark was a financier for the bosses.
“He is alleged to have played more of a facilitator role, the money man.”
Mr Cummings said it was currently unclear who was behind the attack as the “gentleman’s gangster” had a knack for ruffling feathers in Cape Town.
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“It seemed he was someone who loved having power and influence, but he had a mean streak. He was someone who had many, many enemies.”
Lifman always maintained his businesses were above board and he never served prison time, although he was on bail for murder at the time of his assassination.
His first brush with the law came in 2005 when he was accused of the indecent assault of seven boys, the attempted murder of a man who allegedly procured the boys, and perverting the course of justice.
He denied that he was a paedophile and was acquitted after the state’s case collapsed as a result of issues with witnesses.
Dressed in a black pinstripe suit and flanked by a bodyguard, the entrepreneur sped away from the Atlantis regional court in a black Mercedes-Benz.
A tireless entrepreneur, Lifman started out selling baked peanut clusters from his mother’s kitchen in Rondebosch before owning taxis and a pie shop in Cape Town central station.
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His father, Jeffrey, was a businessman and his mother, Rina, a keen golfer at King David Mowbray golf club, according to the SA Jewish Report. The pair were said to have been heartbroken by their son’s career choices.
An acquaintance of Lifman from his early days in Cape Town told SA Jewish Report: “He came across as a regular guy, but you could sense there was a volatile streak. He was friendly, but there was something unpredictable about him.”
A friend from Johannesburg added: “He was a likeable guy, charming even, but obviously he was someone you’d never go into business with. People were scared of him. When he spoke, people listened.”
The South African had amassed a considerable real-estate portfolio and dabbled in horse racing until, in 2001, the Jockey Club of South Africa banned him over claims involving the intimidation of jockeys.
Threats from gangsters
When Lifman purchased three properties in Delft, he reportedly began receiving threats from gangsters.
It was then that Lifman is said to have sought the services of Jerome “Donkie” Booysen, the alleged leader of the Sexy Boys gang in Cape Town.
“Jerome and Mark were tight property magnates for a very long time, using the Sexy Boys to strong-arm people at auctions to keep bids,” a retired police officer told South African news site IOL.
Lifman, Donkie and business partner Andre Naude enjoyed a near monopoly on private protection in Cape Town after rival security boss Cyril Beeka was killed in his silver BMW by a gunman on a motorbike in 2011.
In 2017, suspected crime boss Nafiz Modack, who was allegedly aligned with Beeka, is said to have set about attempting to claw back control of bouncer operations in Cape Town, prompting skirmishes between the rival security outfits.
Colin, the younger brother of Donkie, allegedly moved across to Modack’s operation in a betrayal which further entrenched the rivalry.
Assassination attempts became an occupational hazard for Lifman associates.
Naude was shot at when leaving a restaurant with his son in 2019, while Donkie survived a hail of bullets at a funeral at Durbanville Memorial Park in Cape Town in 2020.
In 2018, Donkie survived being shot by two gunmen inside a restaurant in Kuils River in what was the sixth attempt on his life in the space of a year.
Yuri “The Russian” Ulianitski, a business partner from Lifman’s horse-racing days, had not been so lucky. In May 2007, Ulianitski and his four-year-old daughter were shot dead while driving away from his birthday celebration at a Milnerton restaurant.
Shared assets from the business empire belonging to Ulianitski and Lifman, including a gentleman’s club called The Embassy and a 1971 Rolls-Royce, were later auctioned off in what IOL dubbed the “underworld auction of the century”.
Donkie caused a stir when he attended the gallery alongside Naude for the bail application hearing for the two suspects in Lifman’s murder this December. Speaking to television cameras afterwards, Donkie said “be good, Johnny” in an apparent taunting of one of the suspected hitmen.
The alleged Sexy Boys gang leader has publicly accused Alwyn Landman, the owner of PPA Security, of being behind the hit.
Landman has since been linked to alleged hitman “Johnny” through a property trust and contract work, while South Africa’s anti-gang unit has raided PPA premises in Northgate Island.
Decamped to Namibia over safety fears
Colin Adams, PPA operations manager, has dismissed the allegations while Landman’s lawyer, Martin Hood, of MJ Hood and Associates, told the Cape Argus his client had decamped to Namibia over safety fears.
Lifman became the fourth out of the 14 originally co-accused in the Wainstein case to be shot and killed.
Williams “Red” Stephens, allegedly of the 27s gang which Donkie is said to have enlisted as muscle against Modack, was gunned down outside his home in Rembrandt Street, Kraaifontein, in February 2021.
A month later, Jason Maits was shot and killed while leaving his home in Westridge, and Anthony Ameer van der Watt was fatally shot in his black Mercedes on the M5 highway in October 2022.
Since Lifman’s death, Naude also claims to have survived another “attempted hit” while driving on the N1 towards Paarl.
“Someone is cleaning house,” an underworld source told News24 after Lifman’s murder, while another said: “Blood’s going to flow now.”
During his feud with the younger Modack in 2017, Lifman appeared to have come to terms with his fate.
Lifman told journalist Caryn Dolley that his counterpart was on a “self-destruct mission”.
“This might just play itself out as it does in nature,” he said, adding: “The strongest lion wins and the old lion wanders off into the abyss.
“And the cycle continues.”
Anroux Marais, the Western Cape MEC [Member of the Executive Council] for Police Oversight and Community Safety, said on Monday that a wave of renewed violence hitting the Western Cape was a result of Lifman’s death.
“What I want to point out is that a current contributor to gang-related violence is the phenomenon of less prominent gangsters trying to fill the void left by the death of Mark Lifman,” she warned.
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