Man Alone: Mandela’s top cop – exposing South Africa’s ceaseless sabotage

In this episode Mark sits down with journalist Caryn Dolley to discuss her latest book, ‘Man Alone: Mandela’s top cop – exposing South Africa’s ceaseless sabotage’.

Man Alone follows the career of a remarkable South African police officer called André Lincoln, who passed away in May 2025. He was handpicked during the 1990s by Nelson Mandela, to head a secret unit investigating connections between government officials and organized crime in South Africa. He started with Cosa Nostra, the mafia from Sicily.

His long career was marked by controversy, in 2003, Lincoln was convicted of fraud and sacked by the South African Police Service (SAPS), only for the decision to be overturned a few years later after a successful challenge. He always insisted that people within the state, including fellow officers, targeted him in an attempt to scupper his investigations.

Lincoln dedicated 39 years to law enforcement, eventually heading the Western Cape Anti-Gang Unit, a unit dedicated to combatting gangsterism in the area. He was accused of not doing enough to prevent the murder of his colleague Charl Kinnear, who was gunned down in 2020, although he vehemently denied this.

In May 2025, Major-General André Lincoln passed away, after years of health problems that left him in a wheelchair.

Caryn talks about Lincoln’s life but she also speaks candidly about her life as a journalist covering the crime beat in the Western Cape.

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Caryn Dolley's book ‘Man Alone: Mandela’s top cop – exposing South Africa’s ceaseless sabotage’ is available here: https://www.amazon.com/Man-Alone-Mandelas-exposing-ceaseless-ebook/dp/B0DPZL8ZB1

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