Thabo Bester is arguably THE most (in)famous criminal in South African history.
Excluding politicians, I’m talking brazen execution with no front and no attempt at masking the motive.
Sure there was Daisy de Melker, who poisoned one husband after another. And Andre Stander was probably as elusive as Bester when it came to evading capture.
But this man is on a level of his own. Is there even a crime that he has not committed at this stage; or encouraged, or paid someone to commit on his behalf?
Barely a day passes now where we don’t learn some absurd new fact about this case. And it’s not unlike a John Grisham thriller.
But within all the peculiarity of the tale, there are factual highlights that are stranger than fiction.
After going on the run, Bester and his lover Nandipha Magudumana were arrested by Interpol and local police in the Tanzanian capital Arusha. That is some international spy stuff right there.
This is a woman who was hobnobbing with local stars and has several accolades to her name, including being voted one of the Top 20 Most Influential Young South Africans of 2018.
Quite the feather in her cap and one would imagine a stepping stone to greater things. Instead, it’s anybody’s guess how the mother of two got mixed up with Facebook rapist Thabo Bester. Talk about running with the wrong crowd.
The other interesting thing that got my attention was the speed at which this case was eventually solved. From the time the escape was confirmed and the picture of Bester shopping in Sandton emerged, to his arrest, barely two weeks had passed.
It turns out our police are indeed able to solve complicated cases very quickly … and this one was about as complicated as they come. I mean, they caught a guy who has no birth certificate, uses multiple identities, is clearly a computer ace and uses it to dupe people, has several passports, and was determined to get away. And let's not talk about how quickly he was extradited from another country.
This is especially curious, considering how Shepherd Bushiri and the Guptas are able to seemingly easily avoid the same fate.
I would be surprised if there isn’t a Netflix special by the end of the year. There are so many bizarre things about this story that are screaming to be made into a movie.
His original crimes, the life sentence, the prison businesses, the macabre escape with the help of a glamorous celebrity doctor, multiple bribes and CCTV tampering, the lavish lifestyle, the wheeling and dealing, the midnight border crossing, the comic relief in the form of scrambling politicians, the embarrassed A-listers, including a picture with a certain former president, the eventual recapture and the extradition – by private jet.
It’s a story that the world’s best thriller writers would find hard to conjure up and yet this one has practically written itself. With the clincher being that it was all masterminded by a man who dropped out of school in Grade 5.
I can’t help but wonder what could’ve become of such genius, if nurtured and applied properly to the benefit of society.
Thabo Bester could easily have been a captain of industry, or an inventor to be reckoned with.
I’ll repeat what I said the last time I wrote about him: “If it wasn’t for the raping and murdering, I could almost admire him for the cavalier confidence with which he commits one crime after another. But his actions are just a further indictment on our near-farcical justice system that gives criminals a licence to do as they please. And that could mean, given that he is obviously loaded, he could mastermind another escape … and maybe this time for good. If they do make a series, maybe they can do an in-depth, comparative storyline between Daisy, Andre and Thabo. They can name it ‘Good, Better Bester’.
breinou@gmail.com