Rainbow nation or not, South Africa is battling a crime epidemic. Even as the country was in mourning for their beloved hero Nelson Mandela, Radovan Krejcir, a Czech businessman and fugitive, made headlines this month when he was denied bail. The towering 45-year-old — he stands well over 6'2 and is built like a truck — was arrested in November on charges of kidnapping and assault in connection with a botched 24 million rand ($2.3 million) crystal meth deal. He appeared in the Palm Ridge Magistrate's Court, just outside Johannesburg, alongside his co-accused Desai Lupondo, an associate, and Samuel Maruping and Machache Nthoroane, two burly suspended members of the Hawks, South Africa's elite crime-fighting division. Krejcir's case, a glimpse into a world of narco-trafficking and crooked cops, epitomizes the widespread belief Johannesburg is a gangsters' paradise. "Since the early 90′s there has been a consolidation of criminal networks in South Africa, focusing on the main urban centers, like Johannesburg," says Mark Shaw, an organized crime researcher at the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies, a policy think-tank. "Organized crime is not new," says Shaw, "but it has become much more complex, with much more foreign connections than it had before." As Africa experiences massive growth — real GDP is growing at a rate of 4.9 per cent a year and is expected to total $2.6 trillion in 2020 — so does its illegal economy. South Africa, the continent's largest economy, experienced its organized crime boom after the end of apartheid, when borders opened after years of global isolation. With lawmakers focused on nation-building, not policing, syndicates flourished, taking advantage of the country's sophisticated banking system and transportation infrastructure. After Nigeria, South Africa has the highest level of illicit financial outflows in the continent, growing from US$1.29 billion in 2002, to a staggering US$23.73 billion in 2011, reported Global Financial Integrity, a Washington-based research organization, in 2013. Krejcir, an economics graduate from the University of Ostrava who cashed in on the Czech Republic's post-Soviet privatization schemes, left home in 2005 after he(http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&blog=19871253&post=124553&subd=timeglobalspin&ref=&feed=1)