The Shadow State

On 23 August 2021, a quiet, hardworking single mom was shot down as she drove home. Her name was Babita Deokaran, chief accountant at the Gauteng Department of Health. The izinkabi paid to kill her were caught, but who ordered her murder, and why? Crime reporter Jeff Wicks’s pursuit of answers would profoundly change, and even endanger, his life. This is an explosive investigation into state capture and a moving tribute to the cost of integrity.

Jeff Wicks is a Johannesburg-based investigative journalist with News24. Over nearly two decades, he has focused on organised crime and targeted killings, leading probes into the murders of Charl Kinnear and Babita Deokaran. A two-time winner of the Taco Kuiper Award for investigative journalism, he received the Nat Nakasa Award for courageous journalism in 2024. He co-authored the bestseller Eight Days in July.