Taxi tycoon Joe “Ferrari” Sibanyoni has demonstrated that he is not an average Joe when he ended his bromance with the late former taxi boss Jothan “Mswati” Msibi after discovering that he was entangled with the-now-infamous criminal cartel called the “Big Five”.
The group of five mafias, comprising former police officers and businessmen, are dominating the national discourse after revelations at the Madlanga Commission that they have infiltrated the SAPS and captured high-ranking cops, including suspended police minister Senzo Mchunu.
Intelligence insiders with intimate knowledge of Sibanyoni’s personal life alleged that the minted businessman and Msibi were close friends. However, he decided to keep Msibi at arms’ length when he started warming up to members of the alleged notorious gang. This was after the “Big Five” attended several meetings on Mswati’s farm in Hammanskraal outside Pretoria, in a reserved boardroom that used to be his late mother’s house.
“Sibanyoni decided the rewards weren’t worth the ritual of attending meetings in a dead mother’s shrine,” said the source.
Walking away
Sources added that around 2020 Sibanyoni started distancing himself from the nascent grouping. “He saw the nonsense coming,” a high-level security insider, who cannot be named, told Sunday World. “The plan was always to make money, but they were moving into the drug trade, using the taxi business as cover.
“The rules changed. They would even kill people who were potential threats, or those who betray them in the trade.”
This was a step too far for Sibanyoni, the flamboyant owner of a red Ferrari.
Sunday World understands that the “Big Five” started coming together in 2017, after a shadowy figure, a Vereeniging businessman, arrived in Msibi’s orbit and would become the architect of the cartel’s sinister expansion into the drug trade.
“The newcomer became the glue to the cartel in its infancy, personally recruiting the remaining three members into the group,” a police source said. The businessman was also linked to the formation of a top Premier Soccer League club and even credited for recruiting star players in the mid-1980s.
Through the businessman’s web, a former Sandton police officer was recruited. This individual, believed to be a Lesotho national, is now a multi-industry mogul with interests ranging from an arms company to a laundromat.
His name was mistakenly mentioned at the commission, “but the media missed it”, according to a senior police insider. Sunday World has independently confirmed the man’s identity, but cannot reveal it for legal reasons.
Next was a Soweto security mogul, a man with deep political connections within the governing ANC, and a history linked to a major water project scandal.
Completing the deadly quintet was the publicly known Katiso “KT” Molefe, a suspect in the killing of a Vereeniging man, Armand Swart, over a Transnet contract.
In the bosom of Mommy Dearest
By late 2019, the cartel was becoming a formidable force. And at its heart was a temple of power and sentimentality: a special boardroom on Msibi’s Hammanskraal farm. “It was the house that Msibi had built for his late mother, who he was very fond of,” the source said. “Only the Big Five were allowed to sit in that boardroom. It was their sanctuary, their war room.”
It was from this emotional epicentre that Msibi wielded terrifying influence. “It was not uncommon for Msibi to pick up the phone and bark instructions at the most powerful politicians in the country, from Luthuli House to the Union Buildings.”
In October 2022, Sibanyoni was shot with a hail of bullets. An attempted hit on the tycoon was, according to police intelligence, implicating Mamelodi businessman Vusumuzi “Cat” Matlala.
With Msibi’s passing, a power vacuum emerged.
Testimony at the Madlanga commission suggests Matlala tried to take over the reins but has been described as “too junior” to command the same fear and respect as the late, tearful, yet ruthless leader.
Sibanyoni could not be reached for comment.
