Aah, Bedfordview. Situated between the shady suburbs of Kensington and Glendower, it’s the perfect place to take your kids for a sunny stroll through the leafy avenues – and maybe stop for a coffee at an Italian restaurant. Where you’ll overhear someone ordering a hit on a rival.

Doppio Zero, a chic Italian restaurant in one of Bedford’s wealthier avenues, is an apparent meeting spot for some of the roughest okes in Joburg, and some of the hottest women too – they just happen to be strippers from the late Lolly Jackson’s Teazers. A luxury goods salesperson at a store a few blocks away said he’d overheard them groups of men conducting illicit business in the restaurant before. “I hear they talk about the counterfeit stuff that they bring in to sell that side.”

Just across the highway from Bedfordview is the slightly-less-nice-than-most-places suburb of Bruma. Beside a festering lake that is rumoured to contain more dead bodies than fish (because there are no fish), is a dodgy market that apparently sells some of these boys’ counterfeit designer goods.  But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. You know, brutal murders shrouded in a cloud of espionage and stuff.

A few weeks ago, convicted fraudster and possible war criminal, Radovan Krejcir survived a hit on his life outside his Bedfordview office. A  remotely-triggered car was rigged to shoot Krejcir as he stepped from his building. Last weekend, Krejcir’s associate, Sam Issa perished in a hail of bullets in his black SUV as he stopped at a Bedfordview intersection.

Is the quiet suburb of Bedfordview the Alberguerque of South Africa? Only time will tell.

[Source : Mail and Guardian]