lolly jackson
Mafia boss palozzoli
South Africa is peppered with high-profile figures with known connections to the criminal underworld, their freedom apparently bought from corrupt government officials.
Smith, apparently a Cypriot named Georgianos Louka but who has at least five other aliases, reportedly possesses a South African ID saying he was born here.
And a known criminal he is linked to, Czech billionaire Radovan Krejcir, is being sought by international law-enforcement agencies in connection with a multimillion-euro fraud case and an attempted murder case.
Yet “Smith” and Krejcir are simply the latest additions to the list of criminals who have found refuge here. Remember German tax fugitive Jurgen Harksen, who managed to live in South Africa for nine years before finally being extradited to Germany for his trial?
In evidence during the 2002 bail hearing of another German fugitive, Erwin Heldmann, Harksen was named the contact person for newly arrived fugitives in South Africa as he “knows important people and is au fait with South Africa’s legal system”.
Members of the National Intelligence Agency were involved in procuring false IDs for German fugitives who hid in South Africa, according to the evidence.
Then there is Vito Palazzolo, alias Robert von Palace Kolbatschenko, who has lived in South Africa since the late 1980s, despite being convicted in absentia in Italy for his Mafia dealings.
Often referred to as the Mafia’s banker, Palazzolo was involved in massive money-laundering schemes, as well as drug smuggling and immigration fraud, yet he managed to hide here all this time. Now living in a penthouse on the V&A Waterfront, he is fighting his extradition in the Western Cape High Court (his case resumes on May 18).
Mengistu Haile Mariam, who fled to Zimbabwe in 1991 in defiance of an Ethiopian court that found him guilty in absentia for his role in the killing of nearly 2 000 people during the 1977 to 1978 genocide there, also found a friend in South Africa when he came here in 1999. Although his stay was short, he later claimed his visit was organised at the “highest level” and that the South African government had assured him that he would not be extradited.
More recently, controversial former Rwandan military chief Kayumba Nyamwasa exiled himself in South Africa via Uganda, avoiding moves to have him extradited to Rwanda to answer for yet unspecified charges.
Hollywood goodfella 
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