From the Wrong Side of the Tracks...Chapter 25 – A New Beginning, Vip Protection

What was also happening in the Police was that a lot of white senior officers were seeing their posts being advertised and at the same time, they were offered voluntary retrenchment packages. It resulted in a lot of these senior officers accepting the package. The result was a huge lack of expertise in different sectors of the police.

I was thirty-five years old and had nineteen years’ worth of service and experience in the Police Force. I resigned and there were two hundred and seventy days of leave due to me. It was never paid out to me. I had loved my job. It was a sad day for me when I left. There was no thank you for your service letter or anything like that. As the saying goes – ‘here today gone tomorrow’. It was time to move on. Time for something new.

I decided to tap into the tourist and entertainment industry and offered my services as a close protection officer/bodyguard to the foreigners visiting South Africa, as well as some of the South African local pop artists. Having had VIP Protection training during my police career, I made use of it. I enrolled for a six-week refresher course in VIP Protection for six weeks presented by ex Israeli Special Forces. It cost me the equivalent of a three months’ police salary, which for me was a lot of money. But I was serious and adamant about succeeding in my chosen new venture.

In the first month after leaving the Police, I got a contract for a few weeks protecting a very popular South African black female artist (singer). She had to perform in a few big cities in the country. I made use of two close protection officers to assist me. They also had a police background.

From day one, I clashed with the artist. She was racist in the extreme and wanted everything done her way. We were travelling to Durban from Johannesburg and I could see that she was completely stoned out of her mind, high on some type of drug.

Now remember, I only just left the police, where I worked against drugs for many years. And I had, and still have, a strong dislike for people dealing in and using drugs. And here I am having ended up with a client that is paying me more in one week than the monthly salary I received in the police and she is using. On our arrival in Durban, things got worse. She was stoned all the time. The night of the concert, she was one hour late getting to the stage. She had locked herself in her hotel room and we had to break down the door down to check if she was alright.

We found her passed out on the lounge floor. Her manager pushed her into a shower and sort of woke up. I noticed the cocaine lines on the table in her room. With an enormous effort, we got her into the car and sped to the concert with her.

That night after the concert, I sat and gave the whole contract some serious thought. I already knew what I was going to decide, but I realised I was no longer a cop. I also knew that I had my own moral standards, and I was damned if I was going to allow money to break down those standards. With the best will in the world, I could not find it in me to protect a cocaine addict.

The next morning, I discussed my dilemma with the two guys who were on the contract with me. I handed the contract over to them, three days into the four-week duration of it, and left. This was the type of decision I repeatedly took a few times in the future that followed, while doing VIP Protection duties. I removed myself from the moment the ugly head of drugs stuck its head out.

Needless to say. The pop star referred to above, who had a bright singing future ahead of her, died two years later of a drug overdose.

After leaving the pop star to the other guys on contract with me, and whilst I was in Durban anyway, I decided to meet up with a family friend. She worked in Durban as a travel agent. She told me that a lot of tourists love to travel to the Wild Coast region departing from Durban, going through the Wild coast, and then to Cape Town via the garden route. There were a few incidents during that time on the Wild Coast where vehicles were stoned whilst travelling through a specific area.

There was also an incident where a tourist was robbed close to a well-known holiday resort in the Port St John’s area. Other incidents around that time occurred as well, and in one such an incident, shots were fired and the tourists involved were injured.

I asked my friend if it would be possible for her to promote to her tourists as a bodyguard/driver for the wild Coast route. She told me she would have to be very careful when doing it. Apparently, the South African Tourism Board would have had the right to close down a tourism business if they found out a travel agency promoted holidays in South Africa, where the tourists would be accompanied by a bodyguard.

Despite the concern that the business where she worked could be closed, she decided to help me out. Within two weeks of our discussion, I had my own Touring with Protection Company up and running. During the next three months, I made good money travelling to the Wild Coast with the tourists and protecting them.