Taxi boss reveals how much KZN hitmen who gunned down rapper AKA was paid. A taxi boss has revealed that the KZN hitmen who gunned down rapper AKA were probably paid around R250 000.
TimesLIVE spoke in-depth with a KwaZulu-Natal taxi owner who has extensive knowledge of the hitmen business. Assassins are referred to as izinkabi in isiZulu.
The inquiry revealed that hitmen bill as little as R10,000 for a regular person without a bodyguard and as much as R500,000 or R1,000,000 for more dangerous individuals.
AKA, a South African rapper whose real name is Kiernan Forbes, and his buddy Tebello “Tibz” Motsoane were both fatally shot on February 10 by two masked assailants outside a restaurant on Florida Road in Durban. AKA traveled to Durban to sing at his birthday celebration.
Taxi boss reveals how much KZN hitmen who gunned down rapper AKA was paid
The taxi driver said that the AKA hit was likely produced by three persons: “He was a well-known musician who was constantly around people. You require a driver for the getaway vehicle. You need someone who can give you specifics about what AKA is doing from where he is. The hitman must then fire the shot at that point.
“The more dangerous you are, the more costly the services. It can go all the way to R500,000 or even a million, depending on how dangerous the person is. Some assassinations are so complex they can take six months to execute. If you want to kill someone who has a lot of bodyguards, that hit cannot be done in just a few weeks.”
He told TimesLIVE that in order to reduce the likelihood of being assassinated, the hired murderers must learn as much as they can about their intended victim.
The cab driver noted that because they only killed two persons out of a large group, the people who killed AKA and Tibz were skilled professionals.
He emphasized that because the sector is networked, it is possible that KZN is aware of the AKA assassins. According to TimesLIVE, the network is constantly expanding as young men are taught and employed for taxi fights, political rivalries, and even shady business operations.
KZN has had 38 percent of South Africa’s assassinations, according to research by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC).
After “President of Barcadi” Itumeleng “Vusi Ma R5” Mosoeu, who was killed by gunfire last month, and Oupa John Sefoka, also known as DJ Sumbody, AKA is the third musician to have been arrested since November 2022.
