When private companies assume control over people’s lives and build their businesses on managing them, they bear a heightened responsibility to ensure their operations are conducted with integrity and care.
This obligation is especially pressing for Allied Universal, the world’s largest private security company, which in 2021 acquired G4S, a British security multinational long implicated in serious human rights violations. Despite this troubling record, European pension funds and municipalities continue to invest in Allied Universal.
The Another Dead Prisoner project casts a stark light on conditions inside the G4S-run Mangaung Correctional Facility in South Africa. It was here that Danish citizen Peter Frederiksen lost his life in 2024. Multiple inmates have alleged that Frederiksen was subjected to violent treatment by staff, including electric shocks from guards’ electrified shields. These are claims that point to staff brutality as the cause of his death.
In the spring of 2025, another inmate, Mpho Mkhumbeni, also died following allegations of excessive force. A post-mortem examination concluded that he succumbed to complications from pepper-spray exposure and blunt-force trauma. Although the prison has faced repeated accusations of inmate deaths over the years, Mkhumbeni’s case is the first to result in criminal charges against staff members.
South Africa’s Department of Correctional Services subsequently condemned G4S and its employees for attempting to conceal the killing, accusing them of defeating the ends of justice. Four guards now await sentencing. No managerial employees have been charged.
But since Allied Universal’s acquisition in 2021, G4S has been at the centre of several cases involving human rights violations in other countries as well. This includes Kenya, where private G4S security guards are employed by foreign multinational corporations Holcim and Del Monte, and have been linked to murders and violent assaults in local communities.
In the four years since the change of ownership, Allied Universal has failed to address the structural problems at G4S. With several documented incidents of violence, some resulting in death, G4S continues to operate using brutal and unethical methods.
The investigation has been carried out as a collaboration between Ruth Hopkins, Spitz, Glynnis Marriday and Nicoline Noe, Investigative Reporting Denmark.
See the stories below. The investigation is ongoing and more publications are planned.