{"id":90874,"date":"2025-10-01T15:45:34","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T15:45:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/whatsapp-leaks-show-crime-gangs-infiltrated-saps-empd"},"modified":"2025-10-01T16:28:51","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T16:28:51","slug":"whatsapp-leaks-show-crime-gangs-infiltrated-saps-empd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/whatsapp-leaks-show-crime-gangs-infiltrated-saps-empd","title":{"rendered":"WhatsApp Leaks Show Crime Gangs Infiltrated SAPS EMPD"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; South-Africa. <\/strong><\/span>WhatsApp exchanges that will come before the Madlanga Commission \u201cdemonstrate, at the very least, that organised crime has managed to infiltrate the SAPS and the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Police Department at the very highest level\u201d, said crime intelligence head Dumisani Khumalo on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Khumalo told the commission that five sets of communications had been extracted from the phone of alleged cartel kingpin, Vusimuzi \u201cCat\u201d Matlala.<\/p>\n<p>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 \u201can acknowledged associate of the minister of police\u201d Senzo Mchunu.<\/p>\n<p>These payments were \u201csometimes for expenses for ANC events and, in particular, for the benefit of delegates of such events\u201d who Khumalo said were \u201capparently linked\u201d to Mchunu through his chief of staff, he said.<\/p>\n<p>Khumalo said the WhatsApp messages would show that, \u201cin return\u201d, Mogotsi used his influence within SAPS and the ministry to \u201cmanipulate processes\u201d 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.<\/p>\n<p>There was also a set of exchanges between Matlala and KwaZulu-Natal Hawks head Maj-Gen Lesetja Senona, another between Matlala and Senona\u2019s son Thato, and another between Matlala and acting chief of police in Ekurhuleni, Julius Mkhwanazi.<\/p>\n<p>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<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Crime intelligence head Dumisani Khumalo<br \/>\nKhumalo said that Matlala and murder accused Katiso Molefe are members of the \u201cBig 5\u201d cartel, a sophisticated criminal operation with widespread influence and involved in \u201ca broad spectrum of illicit activities\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Khumalo displayed a diagram of the \u201cBig 5\u201d \u2013 with one person at its head, another who appeared on a second rung, and then three names \u2013 of apparent equal status \u2013 on a rung below. Matlala and Molefe\u2019s names appeared in the third rung. All the other names could not be revealed, he said.<\/p>\n<p>He said the Big 5 had already penetrated the political sphere. \u201cThere 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>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 \u201cthere are already documented cases talking to that\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Cartels had a particular interest in penetrating the criminal justice system, he said, because it was a \u201cstrategic objective to safeguard the operation of the cartel for a long time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBy 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>This was one of the most important objectives of the cartel \u201cbecause then it determines the lifespan and the growth in terms of income for the cartel\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">South-Africa<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; South-Africa. WhatsApp exchanges that will come before the Madlanga Commission \u201cdemonstrate, at the very least, that organised crime has managed to infiltrate the SAPS and the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Police Department at the very highest level\u201d, said crime intelligence head Dumisani Khumalo on Monday. It was day eight of the judicial commission of inquiry [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":90872,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,12],"tags":[275],"class_list":["post-90874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-south-africa-2"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>WhatsApp Leaks Show Crime Gangs Infiltrated SAPS EMPD - South Africa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"WhatsApp exchanges that will come before the Madlanga Commission \u201cdemonstrate, at the very least, that organised crime h ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/whatsapp-leaks-show-crime-gangs-infiltrated-saps-empd\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"WhatsApp Leaks Show Crime Gangs Infiltrated SAPS EMPD\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"WhatsApp exchanges that will come before the Madlanga Commission \u201cdemonstrate, at the very least, that organised crime h ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/whatsapp-leaks-show-crime-gangs-infiltrated-saps-empd\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"South Africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-10-01T15:45:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-10-01T16:28:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2025\/10\/sm_1759323442.961758.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/whatsapp-leaks-show-crime-gangs-infiltrated-saps-empd#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/whatsapp-leaks-show-crime-gangs-infiltrated-saps-empd\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"WhatsApp Leaks Show Crime Gangs Infiltrated SAPS EMPD\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-10-01T15:45:34+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-10-01T16:28:51+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/whatsapp-leaks-show-crime-gangs-infiltrated-saps-empd\"},\"wordCount\":675,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/whatsapp-leaks-show-crime-gangs-infiltrated-saps-empd#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2025\/10\/sm_1759323442.961758.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"South-Africa\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/whatsapp-leaks-show-crime-gangs-infiltrated-saps-empd#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/whatsapp-leaks-show-crime-gangs-infiltrated-saps-empd\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/whatsapp-leaks-show-crime-gangs-infiltrated-saps-empd\",\"name\":\"WhatsApp Leaks Show Crime Gangs Infiltrated SAPS EMPD - 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