The criminal economy in South Africa is under the spotlight in the latest Africa Organised Crime Index. Chris Steyn speaks to Willem Els of the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) about the factors that contributed to South Africa moving up to Number Two. “…unfortunately, and I think it came out in recent months in South Africa as well, your State-embedded actors are actually driving the agenda If it were not for them, it would not have been possible to have these types of criminality levels...what came to the forefront in recent months, is how these things were facilitated for these criminal actors in terms of capturing our judicial system and the policing.” As for the country' chances of navigating out of that hot spot, Els says: “It seems that should South Africa actually start to implement the right things and move in the right direction, it will take up to 25 years before we can actually be in the green when it comes to criminality. So it's a long road ahead of us. We have to battle it. There needs to be that political war.” Els also gives an updste on a top-level investigation into allegations that Duduzile Zuma has “trafficked” people to Russia to be used in the war against Ukraine, as well as other cases of human trafficking of South Africans.