[imagesource: Leon Knipe]

Cape Town has been rife with gang violence for yonks now, and the turbulence shows no sign of stopping anytime soon.

Two gangs who have been at each other’s throats all these years are the Americans and the Fancy Boys gang.

Now, the two gangs are in an all-out turf war, with a shooting that happened in broad daylight outside a Wynberg mosque on Friday afternoon.

It is alleged that some gangsters from the Fancy Boys were out to target alleged Americans gang leader Mohammad Gummie Solomons, 43, from Heideveld.

The Fancy Boys had driven past Park Road masjid just after Jumu’ah prayers and shot at their target who was in the car with two other suspected Americans gangsters.

Although Solomons was only injured on the scene, along with another person in the car with him, the third man was shot dead, reported the Daily Voice:

[Solomons’] nephew Adenaan Cloete, 29, who was behind the wheel of the silver VW Golf, was shot twice in the hip and the spine and died at the scene while a passenger, Reza Clayton, 41, was also wounded.

According to a source, Solomons was hit in the buttocks, and about 21 bullet doppies were found at the scene.

Solomons lay injured on the floor as his fellow mosque-goers assisted him:

Image: Leon Knipe

The two shooters attacked as he was getting into the car before fleeing the scene, with an eyewitness claiming that Solomons was the target:

“I was coming out of the mosque when it happened.

I know all about Gummie because he regularly comes to the mosque and basically organises things for the Americans,” the source told Daily Voice.

I am not aware if he is a leader but he is well affiliated and quite high up.

The others are also high-ranking guys but I think Gummie was the target because most of the shots were in his direction and it looks like the other two guys were shot first so that they could not protect him.

He was also quite close with his nephew that was killed and they often come together to the mosque.”

The Park Road Mosque:

Image: Leon Knipe

Another “well-placed source” said that Solomons is the latest victim in a “clean-up” by the Fancy Boys gang:

“The Fancy Boys are taking over turf across Cape Town and they are going after all the Americans turf.”

The source said Solomons attended the Park Road mosque every Friday for jumu’ah prayers and kept a low profile in Heideveld.

“He was not a troublemaker, hy was rustig.”

A member of the Heideveld CPF, who did not want to be named for fear of victimisation, confirmed this by adding that Solomons is an “active gang member so his shooting can be seen as a message to the actual leaders that anybody can be targeted at any time, even while attending mosque or church.”

Manenberg SAPS’ Sanele Zama said last week that the violence in Heideveld was sparked by three local gangs turning their guns on the Fancy Boys:

“The Americans are pushing back and fighting the Fancy Boys and now there are lots of retaliation shootings,” he said.

“The Fancy Boys have also started to move towards the smaller turfs run by the West Siders and Junior Mafias and even they are hitting back.”

The South African Police Service’s FC van Wyk said that an investigation has been opened, with the search for the shooters underway.

[source:dailyvoice]