Kiernan ‘AKA’ Forbes was assassinated in Durban after he played down several warnings not to set foot in the city.
The slain rapper was gunned down outside Wish Restaurant on Florida Road on February 10, 2023, alongside a friend, Tebello “Tibz” Motsoane.
Professional hits are common in South Africa and it’s suspected that Durban businessman Moses Tembe’s ordered the hit on AKA.
AKA’s assassination has been linked to the mysterious death of his fiancée Anele “Nelli” Tembe (Moses Tembe’s daughter) who tragically died in April 2021 at a hotel in Cape Town.
Tembe died when she fell from the 10th floor of the Pepperclub Hotel in Cape Town. According to reports from paramedics, she allegedly jumped from the tenth floor of the hotel.
AKA was blamed by some people for allegedly causing his fiancée’s death.
It emerged that the slain rapper had been warned several times not to visit Durban again after the passing of his fiancée.
A local taxi boss who has knowledge of professional hits (taxis are South Africa’s equivalent of Kenya’s matatus. They are operated by gangs) said that AKA’s killers were paid R250,000/Ksh1.7 million.
The taxi boss who spoke to TimesLive on condition of anonymity revealed that hits range from R10,000/Ksh69,339 to kill an ordinary person with no bodyguards to R500,000/Ksh3.4 million.
The man said the “more dangerous” a person was, the more expensive the contract killing became.
The taxi boss said killing a person could take time, and a hit for a person with bodyguards could take months to execute.
To carry out the hit, the taxi boss told TimesLive, that someone had to inform the killers of AKA’s whereabouts, one person was hired to pull the trigger, and someone to drive the getaway car.
In addition, he said the hitmen who killed AKA were not amateurs.
“They shot the two people in the presence of many. An amateur would not be able to do that. These are serious hitmen,” he told TimesLive.
