Picture: The convicted murderer and rapist, Thabo Bester at the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court/Google
By GILBERT MOTSAATHEBE
There are striking similarities between the current story of convicted rapist and murderer Thabo Bester and another story involving a conman who stole large sums of money from unsuspecting South Africans in the 1930s. In 1934, a man purporting to be the son of Emperor Haile Selassie and heir to the Abyssinian (present-day Ethiopia) throne arrived in South Africa with a startling story.
According to an article published by Drum Magazine in June 1981, the man using the name Prince Yusuf claimed that Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini was planning chemical warfare and that the poisonous gas would engulf the rest of South Africa. He claimed that he has connections and could arrange the necessary protective gear for those who do not want to be killed by the gas.
He hurriedly formed a company and told people to invest so they could be supplied with the necessary safety equipment to ensure that they survive the fatal chemicals the Italians were about to unleash. His company however was not a property or media company, it was more like a political movement called the African Legion.
As the Drum reported “the legion was to fight to save South Africa from the Italians and in a massive recruitment drive recruits were told that poison gas would be used in the war and the smoke would fill South Africa.
“It [The gas] would kill everybody apart from those in the legion who would be specially equipped with protective uniforms (cost 2 pounds) and gas masks (2 pounds five shillings). Membership of the Legion cost 2 pounds five shillings”.
The Money started coming in.
However, it turned out that Prince Yusuf was a big-time swindler. His name was not Yusuf either and he was not a prince. He was in fact a local South African by the name of David Kgobe.
Now, recently South Africans were absorbed in another reverting story of similar proportions if not more involving a convicted rapist and murderer, Thabo Bester and her girlfriend, Dr Nandipha Magudumana, South Africa’s modern-day Clive and Derby who arrived in Tanzania with Thabo posing as a US citizen before being arrested and sent back to South Africa.
The interesting thing is that a year prior Thabo Bester who was in jail for rape and murder among others had launched a daring escape leaving behind a trail of destruction including a charred body and a doused cell.
It later emerged that he had been alive and well living a lofty lifestyle in one of the leafy suburbs of Johannesburg and had been sleeping in one of the presidential suites of some of our luxurious hotels while many thought he was in prison. The similarities between Prince Yusuf and Tom Motsepe alias TK Nkwana or Tommy William Kelly are startling.
Perhaps the first and obvious similarity is that both men were big-time fraudsters who were not afraid to come up with elaborate plans to con unsuspecting people.
Secondly, they both started scam companies and enticed people to invest large sums of money. Kgobe formed the African Legion and the South African Mark Trading Corporation LTD, while Bester formed the 21st Century Media and a construction company called Arum Properties. They both recruited people who started investing in their respective companies.
They both used aliases throughout their criminal escapades. They both claimed to be related to famous people. Bester claimed to be related to business Patrice Motsepe while Kgobe claimed to be reacted to Ethiopian Ruler Emperor Haile Selassie. They both went for an elaborate spectacle to launch their companies. As the money started rolling in, Kgobe went for the spectacle to launch the movement in the glitz and glamour.
As the Drum reported: “In a comic opera attempt at a show, the army began drilling, marching and countermarching with sticks instead of rifles”.
Similarly, Bester organised a glitzy ceremony in Sandton and even appeared in a video link at his Women in Media Conference attended by some of the country’s A-Listers who even belted a happy birthday song for Thabo Bester, apparently thinking that he was Tom Motsepe, the company’s CEO. In the case of Kgobe, he later slipped off the country briefly, telling told his members that he was being deported back to Ethiopia but that they must keep the Legion going. But he was back in 1938 and he started a new venture.
This time, he told followers that he had a connection with an English wool manufacturer, claiming that their products were of good quality and started another company. “He flouted a company called the South African Mark Trading Corporation Ltd. A wide network of agents was set up and people bought shares in the new corporation.”
But the amazing prince was not done. He told investors that he was forming a bank called the Bantu Bank and that he needed 10 000 pounds to get it off the ground. The investors were promised huge interest.
“Once again the money began flowing”.
It was only when members started to worry when they realised that there was still no sign of poison gas that people started paying attention. In the same breath, Bester had started at least two known companies namely a property investment company and a media company called 21st Century Media. Like Kgobe, Bester claimed that his company had a connection with a foreign company as he purported that the company was a subsidiary of 21st Century Fox.
The two stories have all the hallmarks of a successful blockbuster, with compelling plots, unimaginable twists, suspense and daring and audacious characters. In both cases the odds are stacked against the main characters and the tension builds as our characters find their way taking the audience on an elaborate journey of discovery.
What can we learn?
As Bop Leshoi once wrote in a preface to a popular youth novel Albatross Winter, although stories are not necessarily meant to teach us moral lessons, incidental lessons do happen. Perhaps what we can learn from the two stories are the same old rules of thumb: do not believe everything that you hear; trust no one; rules are made to be broken; crime does not pay.
Note: (Gilbert Motsaathebe (PhD) is an NRF-rated Professor at the North-West University in the Indigenous Language Media in Africa (ILMA) research entity. He was until recently the Editor-in-Chief of Communicare—Journal for Communication Studies in Africa)
The Guardian 