Africa-Press – South-Africa. WhatsApp exchanges that will come before the Madlanga Commission “demonstrate, at the very least, that organised crime has managed to infiltrate the SAPS and the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Police Department at the very highest level”, said crime intelligence head Dumisani Khumalo on Monday.
It was day eight of the judicial commission of inquiry into criminality, political interference and corruption in the criminal justice system and the divisional commissioner of crime intelligence, who is also the project leader of the Political Killings Task Team, was giving evidence.
Khumalo told the commission that five sets of communications had been extracted from the phone of alleged cartel kingpin, Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala.
He said the exchanges, which will be detailed before the commission on Tuesday, would show, among other things, that Matlala made payments to North West businessman Brown Mogotsi, who was “an acknowledged associate of the minister of police” Senzo Mchunu.
These payments were “sometimes for expenses for ANC events and, in particular, for the benefit of delegates of such events” who Khumalo said were “apparently linked” to Mchunu through his chief of staff, he said.
Khumalo said the WhatsApp messages would show that, “in return”, Mogotsi used his influence within SAPS and the ministry to “manipulate processes” to frustrate criminal investigations and also leaked highly confidential or classified information to Matlala. He also coordinated the payment from SAPS to a company owned by Matlala, which unlawfully procured a contract from SAPS worth R360m.
There was also a set of exchanges between Matlala and KwaZulu-Natal Hawks head Maj-Gen Lesetja Senona, another between Matlala and Senona’s son Thato, and another between Matlala and acting chief of police in Ekurhuleni, Julius Mkhwanazi.
There are documented cases of high profile connections in the political arena; senior politicians alleged to be complicit and/or wilfully blind to the syndicate operations
— Crime intelligence head Dumisani Khumalo
Khumalo said that Matlala and murder accused Katiso Molefe are members of the “Big 5” cartel, a sophisticated criminal operation with widespread influence and involved in “a broad spectrum of illicit activities”.
Its main commodity was illicit drug trafficking, coupled with contract killings associated with drug trafficking. It was also involved in cross-border vehicle hijacking, tender fraud and extortion mainly relating to drug trafficking, he said.
Khumalo displayed a diagram of the “Big 5” – with one person at its head, another who appeared on a second rung, and then three names – of apparent equal status – on a rung below. Matlala and Molefe’s names appeared in the third rung. All the other names could not be revealed, he said.
He said the Big 5 had already penetrated the political sphere. “There are documented cases of high profile connections in the political arena; senior politicians alleged to be complicit and/or wilfully blind to the syndicate operations.”
Khumalo said it was a normal feature of a cartel to seek to penetrate the political sphere, and since the Big Five had been under investigation “there are already documented cases talking to that”.
Khumalo took some time to detail how cartels worked in general, saying they were highly organised, with syndicates within the cartel that blended criminal operations with legitimate businesses. This allowed them to have influence at all levels. Tender fraud was often used as a means of laundering money from the other parts of the criminal enterprise.
Cartels had a particular interest in penetrating the criminal justice system, he said, because it was a “strategic objective to safeguard the operation of the cartel for a long time.
“By securing allies among the key judicial and law enforcement officials as well as political figures at various levels, but most importantly at very high levels, the cartel can remain able to manipulate the investigations, suppress evidence, obstruct legal proceedings that threaten their activities,” he said.
This was one of the most important objectives of the cartel “because then it determines the lifespan and the growth in terms of income for the cartel”.
For More News And Analysis About South-Africa Follow Africa-Press
