Johannesburg's No-Go Zones: Where Places Police Fear to Enter

Added: 2026-05-16

[00:00:00]For a long time South Africa has been synonymous with violent crime. Most South Africans do fear home invasions.

[00:00:07]Johannesburg, South Africa has an international reputation as a dangerous, divided, and unstable place.

[00:00:15]In 2024, Johannesburg was ranked as the third highest African city for violent crime.

[00:00:21]Overall, crime is falling, but in the last year rape, murder, and carjackings have all increased. Suspects are buying AK-47s on the street.

[00:00:31]The crime rate in South Africa [music] is far higher than anywhere else in the world. We're here to find out exactly how dangerous it can be.

[00:00:39]And the reasons [music] behind it. First find out what's on the block.

[00:00:43]Stay.

[00:00:50]>> [music] >> Driving around the residential streets and suburbs of Johannesburg, you're struck by a very specific way of living.

[00:00:58]For those privileged enough to afford to live in an area like Houghton, personal [music] security is at the forefront of their minds.

[00:01:05]Homes here are safely hidden behind 3-m reinforced concrete walls topped with electrified barbed wire fencing, CCTV, and laser beam alarms.

[00:01:14]>> [music] >> You can't see people's front doors from the road, and you don't see many people walking around the neighborhoods. This is very much the norm for the city. And this is who residents pay to protect them, a private security company.

[00:01:28]This is privileged behind-the-scenes access Joburg's biggest firms.

[00:01:34]Yasin is taking us out on a patrol to show us the extent of the security problem in the city.

[00:01:41]Here we are. We're driving around. Where are we going?

[00:01:46]So, we heading into Johannesburg CBD, uh notorious Johannesburg. Our downtown Johannesburg is a absolute no-go area for tourists [music] specifically.

[00:01:57]Uh tourists often get robbed. Uh yeah.

[00:01:59]in the in the Johannesburg CBD area.

[00:02:02]It's known for a lot of gang violence, known to be very very unsafe. So we're heading into that area. It's just past peak time traffic. Yasin's company mostly provides security for Joburg's most privileged citizens, >> [music] >> but they also fill gaps that police resources can't cover. Do you think the police are very overwhelmed?

[00:02:23]Extremely overwhelmed. They can't keep up. The private security industry outnumbers the police by eight to one.

[00:02:31]Currently.

[00:02:32]Eight to one? Eight to one. So private security industry is largest employer in the country at the moment. Just then, a call comes in over the radio.

[00:02:42]Just put the lights on. We're already just put the lights on. I don't know what they're responding to. Let's see where we're going to.

[00:02:48]>> Oh my god, one in viral.

[00:02:52]What's happening?

[00:02:55]Good day. Coffee in progress.

[00:02:57]I'm going to hang back a little bit cuz I'm having a bulletproof vest on. So robbery in progress? Robbery in progress. [ __ ] Sorry. Excuse my language.

[00:03:09]So we'll switch lights off because it's in progress. Okay. And we don't want them to shoot at us while they're driving out.

[00:03:16]But we're not far from there now.

[00:03:20]I'm fighting the urge to scream with excitement right now.

[00:03:25]>> [music] >> Okay. They're going They're heading out.

[00:03:32]They're heading out quick.

[00:03:38]What's happening? No, sir. He's just collecting money by force. I'm going to die here. LET ME TELL YOU MY LIFE IS IN DANGER HERE. I'M asking the old man. Did you ever take anything of this house? The old man doesn't But I was left So right now, the owner is nowhere to be found.

[00:03:55]You understand? Okay. So that's what I'm saying this is a civil case. Civil matter. Okay.

[00:03:59]Sure.

[00:04:00]Sure yes. Sure.

[00:04:06]So what happened there Yasin? It seems like a civil issue. They're fighting for the house.

[00:04:11]Uh the old man claims that he's in charge of the house there. But he called the [music] police to say that they it is a armed robbery. That's what he called the police to to complain about.

[00:04:22]Um Just to get their attention. To to respond.

[00:04:26]Yeah, I mean that was that was that was nippy.

[00:04:31]Yasin's company use all sorts of cutting-edge tech to combat a long list of incidents from kidnapping and ransom demands to home invasion panic alarms.

[00:04:41]I'm interested in the car that's been spotted that has the license plate in association with the kidnapping. Is that an open investigation this specific kidnapping?

[00:04:48]>> open investigation. So what what what what's the next step here when this car So if this guy if this guy hits for example in our in our operational area >> In your jurisdiction.

[00:04:58]>> We respond.

[00:04:59]Why is all of this stuff needed?

[00:05:02]Why is it unique to to Joburg or South Africa? These uh the crime rate in South Africa is um far higher than anywhere else [music] in the world. And without the private security companies there'll be absolutely some areas will be lawlessness. Total lawlessness.

[00:05:18]What do you think the overriding crime is at the moment? What is the biggest problem? Well, I think just unemployment. There's so much of unemployment throughout uh throughout [music] the country. The masses concentrated in Johannesburg in Gauteng.

[00:05:30]Uh we see we see crime rampant. Um there's certain areas where police [music] uh just feel they they fear for their own lives if they try and go into those areas. I mean what happens to the people who aren't able to afford private security?

[00:05:44]>> You have to afford an alarm. Some might not be able to afford bodyguards. Others might not be able to afford an armed guard outside the place.

[00:05:50]But I mean the basics you have to have.

[00:05:55]We live in a country where you can't go to bed with your windows open.

[00:06:04]So I've done a lot of filming with police in the UK and I'd say that they're not as prepared as these guys. They've got um just about everything you can kind of think of in terms of kit. I mean all the weapons, just all the weapons.

[00:06:18]It's a different place. It's a completely different world over here, you know, the the dangers, the the the threats and the the what they're what they're kind of job is to do and who and who who pays them to do it, to protect them and to to keep them safe is is just incredible. So it's it's not like anywhere else. It's sort of reassuring and scary in equal measure, I think. It seems that the people who can afford it are the ones who are getting protected is um and the people who can't are being left to fend for themselves in like a very big way.

[00:06:57]Um and again, this is just another example of the extreme wealth divide between the haves and the have-nots in South Africa and Johannesburg.

[00:07:10]>> [music] >> One of the biggest problems in downtown Joburg right now is hijacked buildings.

[00:07:18]>> [music] >> A lot of these buildings are now taken over by >> [music] >> gangs that would rent out rooms. They'll basically split each apartment into into rooms and rent those rooms out. These hijacked buildings would basically have a security guard there and often they're kicking the owners of the property off the property so that they can continue collecting the rentals. Really? These lords would then >> [music] >> link up illegal connections for water and electricity. And there's this ongoing court battle where the owners are [music] frustrated and they abandoned the building.

[00:07:54]And these buildings are now taken over by homeless, by gangs, by people that are renting it out illegally.

[00:08:02]This has become a major issue.

[00:08:04]At the end of apartheid, the CBD, Central Business District, had become a no-go zone and a virtual ghost town.

[00:08:17]These days it's full of abandoned buildings.

[00:08:20]Built for commercial purposes, but now used by the city's poorest communities.

[00:08:26]A lot of white people who had these big, gigantic buildings, they left the country because they they had no confidence in South Africa. Um so they left these buildings empty.

[00:08:36]And what then happened is gangs would then hijack these buildings. But they were it was serving a purpose in the sense that people needed accommodation. Today we've arranged to visit one of the abandoned buildings in the notorious Hillbrow area in the heart of the CBD.

[00:08:54]I went to dinner with my girlfriend last night.

[00:08:57]Had to get an Uber there and had to get an Uber back. Great. Had two lovely conversations with two lovely gentlemen.

[00:09:03]>> [music] >> But then I said, "Oh, tomorrow I'm going to the CBD." And both of them turned around and went, "You?"

[00:09:08]And I was like, "Yeah. Yeah." And they went, "No, you're not. No, no, no, you're not going. You're not going."

[00:09:13]Then one of them turned to me and he said, "If someone tells you to run, you just run."

[00:09:20]I was going to tell you to run. So here is it I have to be you.

[00:09:37]Like it does.

[00:09:39]I'm not going to lie, it does it does it doesn't look great. It looks like there's been fire damage there as well.

[00:09:46]This is Florence House. Sounds charming.

[00:09:50]It's not. Do you mind? Different vibe here to pretty much everywhere else we've been so far apart from certainly in central Johannesburg outside of the townships. I mean this is this is much more like the township.

[00:10:05]In terms of a vibe or a feel. We're in this kind of poverty. That's what it is. Welcome.

[00:10:12]Welcome, guys. I'm >> Thank you.

[00:10:15]Kind of dark. Yeah, but remember there's no electricity here, right? Yeah. Should I put a torch on or we okay?

[00:10:21]Um yeah, lighting are you going to She can see her way around.

[00:10:47]Please tell me that's not blood.

[00:10:49]That's what I was thinking.

[00:10:52]Steve Cross my fingers. On the floor.

[00:10:55]Why what did you What did you think it was? Blood. Blood?

[00:10:59]I'm assuming it looks like blood or [ __ ] Do you think it's blood?

[00:11:02]No, the weeds um It's splatter that's fake.

[00:11:06]>> Splatter that's fake. It looks like blood. Uh blood? Yeah.

[00:11:10]Yeah.

[00:11:12]I'm not kidding. It looks like blood.

[00:11:14]>> [laughter] >> No, no, no.

[00:11:18]>> [music] >> Inside it's like being in apocalyptic zombie first-person video game or a real-life escape room.

[00:11:34]It's utterly terrifying.

[00:11:42]We're told by a resident that gangs attempted to take control of the building back in 2017.

[00:11:50]How do you think When the gangs came and you said that you fought them off, um how did you do that? Because as a community um who is the owner of the building? You're the owner of When those when those one came in, they wanted us to pay rent.

[00:12:07]They to them we told them we cannot pay rent to you because you are not the owner of the building.

[00:12:17]Yes, they tried to use force but okay, we for us we refused, [music] we resisted.

[00:12:24]Yeah. And then they cannot uh evict every everybody because we refused to pay rent to them. So eventually they just left us alone. They just gave up. Yeah, they just gave up.

[00:12:35]And they haven't been back since. And The building's power was switched off recently when the building's landlord just upped and left. Water is sporadic at best.

[00:12:54]Some days it runs from communal taps, others it just [music] doesn't.

[00:13:02]Private buyers won't invest in the area [music] and the government has all but written the place off.

[00:13:08]Around 200 people call this place their home along with an unofficial orphanage.

[00:13:21]>> [music] >> They all live in constant fear of gangs returning [music] and seemingly without much hope that things will improve.

[00:13:29]>> This is terrible. Like the conditions are horrendous, but I feel horrible saying that because like what right do I have but they can't see your hand in front of your face.

[00:13:41]You can't. There's water everywhere. There's blood on the ground. It's like And rooms are numbered like it's something out of like here you can see it.

[00:13:54]You can see what my gates are. numbered like something out of some case. Like It feels like an apocalyptic wasteland.

[00:14:03]So this this water is from the rain water, is it? Is It's from the rain water, yeah.

[00:14:07]But I came to Florence maybe six years ago. It wasn't like this. It wasn't in as bad shape as it is. This has gotten worse, eh?

[00:14:17]Was it worse than it was the last time you were here? Yeah, >> [music] >> it's gotten considerably worse.

[00:14:26]This is how people live in this country, man.