Patriotic Alliance's links to gangs - By The Numbers  

The Patriotic Alliance’s links to Gangs - By the numbers.
The 26s
Gayton Mckenzie has claimed for years he was a prominent leader of the 26s gang during his time in prison. And unsurprisingly when the PA launced in 2013, Major-General Jeremy Vearey publicly claimed the alliance was led by members of the notorious 26s numbers prison gang.
At the time, Western Cape police sources said their launch event was attended by about 250 prominent gangsters and businessmen with underworld links.
Gayton McKenzie rubbished the claims and said publicly that he’d long outgrown the numbers gang.
But was that the case?
Could the self-proclaimed leader of the 26s simply outgrow the notoriously hard to leave numbers gang? It is hard to believe.
Recently the PA has been seen using security companies linked to the 26s gang at by-elections and events solidifying their long-standing relationship.
The 27s -
In January 2024 a recording leaked of Patriotic Alliance City of Johannesburg councillor, who claimed Chinelle Stevens, the party’s secretary general and daughter of reputed Cape Town gangster and drug peddler William “Red” Stevens, took over her father’s criminal operations and funded the organisation with the spoils.
Red Stevens, a convicted criminal who the state said ran the 27s prison and street gang, was slain outside his Cape Town home in February 2021 while he was out on R100 000 bail, after being accused of killing the steroids dealer Brian Wainstein in 2017.
Red initially joined the 26s gang in prison, but then converted to the 27s. Leaders of the gang at the time had earmarked him as a recruit allegedly for his propensity for violence. In the words of one member of the 27s, ‘In prison “Red” took blood and stabbed his way into the 27s gang.
The notorious gangster, who was known for his full face of tattoos and affiliations with other underworld figures, was gunned down by three gunmen outside his home in 2021.
Stevens, along with alleged gang boss Jerome Booysen and businessman Mark Lifman, was due to appear in court next week on charges of murder and money laundering, among others.
Gayton Mckenzie delivered a 27 minute speech at Red’s funeral in 2021 wearing a PA shirt praising the gangster making it very clear that he didn’t outgrow the numbers gang and that there is a solid relationship between the PA and the 27s.
The 28s Gang -
In September 2013, 28s linked Hard Livings gang leader Rashied Staggie signed up as a member of the the Patriotic Alliance.
Staggie had been jailed for a 1998 robbery at a police base - situated near the winelands hub of Stellenbosch and seaside town of Strand - from which a cache of arms, possibly to have been used on members of the organisation People Against Gangsterism and Drugs, was stolen.
At the time Gayton proclaimed the gangster was a leader, that he was a reformed man and even went as far to claim he was his employer.
The PA defended Rashied publically during this period but the reality was that upon his release, it was business as usual for the gang leader and he would face the same fate as Red Stevens in 2019.
Another reformed gangster Ivan Waldeck, was a pastor with a history linked to the 28s gang. In 2013 he said he was instrumental in setting up the PA, having been involved in its early stages, and that McKenzie and his cohorts had effectively “used” him to gain support because Waldeck was from the Western Cape while McKenzie and Kunene where originally from the Free state.
Waldeck, is currently Santaco’s Provincial Treasurer, the taxi organisation that is responsible for endless murders and cases of extortion across the province.
According to reports the PA is also making use of a 28s linked security company that is affiliated with Nafiz Modack and Colin Booysen, brother of Jerome Booysen.
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Can a gangster really outgrow the Number gangs, there’s a saying in prison that goes “there’s a gate in, there’s no gate out”
When a gangster was recruited into a Number, they are told their eyes and hands would be taken and replaced by ones the gang issued. You belong to the Number in body, in sight and soul.