The police's crime intelligence division is so secretive it is referred to by some officers in other divisions as the "Ghost Riders in the Sky", after the song made famous by Johnny Cash.
With the crime intelligence leadership in crisis, questions about its operations have been raised by senior police officers, who told the Mail & Guardian this week that the secretive division is not carrying out its mandate of gathering intelligence to inform operations and they have to gather their own intelligence.
Other senior police officers said that crime intelligence officers on the ground were still providing intelligence to the Hawks (the directorate for priority crime investigation), but there were lapses in areas such as drug operations, which had previously been one of its strengths.
Following police investigations into the head of crime intelligence, Richard Mdluli – who was suspended on corruption and murder charges – some officers admitted that relations with the division had become strained.
Claims that crime intelligence is not performing adequately have been disputed by national police commissioner Riah Phiyega's spokesperson Lieutenant General Solomon Makgale: "It is not correct to say that the more than 10 000 people within crime intelligence come to work every day and just bask in the sun and have a good time," he said.
"There is a lot of hard work involved, but there is definitely room for improvement."
Information into evidence
Crime intelligence was providing information to the police, said Makgale, particularly in relation to organised crime.
"Crime intelligence works very closely with the Hawks," he said.
"The challenge has always been to investigate and convert this information into evidence which can be presented before courts. As you will appreciate with organised crime, it is concealed under legitimate businesses and it is not easy to detect as it is conducted by a close-knit community."
Johan Burger, a senior researcher in the governance, crime and justice division of the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, believes crime intelligence is in a shambles.
Burger wrote a paper last month claiming that dysfunction in the division has severe implications for reducing crime, and that it was not currently able to function effectively and efficiently.
"This is largely the result of years of infighting, poor leadership and maladministration caused by inappropriate political interference," he said. "Fortunately, the national commissioner of the [South African Police Service], General Riah Phiyega, is fully aware of the problem and admitted before Parliament on September 18 that the SAPS's crime intelligence division was ailing."
Ailing
The simple answer is that the "ailing" state of the crime intelligence division can be attributed to a combination of large-scale fraud and corruption within the division, and the struggle for political control of this powerful intelligence institution, said Burger.
He said the "Mdluli debacle" meant that a number of highly skilled and experienced crime intelligence officers were removed, as they posed a threat to him.
"This also means that the division relies primarily on the dedication of lower-ranking officers who cannot trust their leaders to do the right thing," he said.
"The results speak for themselves."
Crime intelligence is crucial if the police are to reduce the more organised types of crime that require planning and are supported by networks dealing in stolen goods, said Burger. There has been an increase in virtually all such crimes in the past financial year.
House robberies (where people are attacked by armed gangs in their homes) increased by 7.1% to 17 950 incidents, representing an additional 1 184 households compared with the previous year.
Business robberies increased by 2,7% to 16 377. There were an additional 426 armed attacks on businesses in 2012/13 compared with the previous year. This type of crime has increased by 345% in the past eight years.
Serious offenders
Vehicle hijacking increased by 5.4% to 9 990 incidents. This means that on average 28 motor vehicles were hijacked every day.
Makgale, however, said the Institute for Security Studies did not always have the facts before providing "so-called scientific analysis".
A high-ranking police officer told the M&G that competency and training are a problem in crime intelligence. He said the division was trying to predict patterns by looking at data on past crime patterns and aren't providing proper intelligence about crimes that are happening or are about to happen.
"It is the type of policing where chasing crime is looking in the rear view mirror," he said.
"We are not getting sufficient information to target the prolific and serious offenders."
When crime intelligence did provide technical information after listening in to phone calls, they never gave sufficient evaluation to explain the threat, said the officer.
"The first we heard of an example of a conversation being monitored lately was when we had a leakage to a newspaper of a taped conversation of Phiyega in conversation with Western Cape police commissioner Arno Lamoer," he said.
In a memo she wrote to police staff, Phiyega said that crime intelligence had "concocted a story" and opened a case against her in the Western Cape.
Phiyega has been charged with defeating the ends of justice by tipping off Lamoer about an investigation into whether he received a bribe. The case is being investigated by the Independent Police Investigative Directorate.
Last year crime intelligence amalgamated with the police's protection services division, but some senior officers believe the divisions should be split up again, because of allegations of corruption.
"The irony is that crime intelligence has to provide clearance for every other senior police officer, but there is no confidence in its ability," said a senior police officer.
"We, the rest of the police, have our own informers and sources and we produce more information and intelligence than they will ever be able to run. They have all the cars and money, but we just call them Ghost Riders in the Sky."
Colonel who exposed corruption sits and stews
When he was the acting head of the internal audit division of the crime intelligence division, Colonel Kobus Roos exposed corruption in its secret service account.
Roos claims he was appointed to investigate the account by the now suspended head of crime intelligence, Richard Mdluli, who later shut down the investigation.
After Roos disclosed he had found proof of corruption, he was moved to crime intelligence's inspection and evaluation division, which was not a functional unit.
"Colonel Roos has been doing nothing for two and a half years. There are no resources and structures," said Dirk Groenewald, head of trade union Solidarity's Fair Labour Practice office, which is representing Roos.
"He has been putting in applications for a fax machine and other things he needs to do his job, but he has had no response."
Roos is asking for his old job back and for compensation from the police. His case in the Labour Court in Johannesburg was postponed on Thursday until February next year.
The South African Police Service's court application for the case to be postponed indefinitely was opposed by Solidarity.
Police this week requested that criminal charges against Roos be investigated, adding that some of the documents in the court papers were confidential. "The SAPS have, however, been aware of the documents for more than a year and the documents are already in the public domain," said Groenewald.
Top cops behaving badly
High-ranking officials from the police's crime intelligence division have been suspended, sacked, or placed under investigation in the past four years:
2009: The head of crime intelligence, Mulangi Mphego, is forced to resign after he was accused of interfering with state witnesses in the corruption case against former national police commissioner Jackie Selebi.
2011: Mphego's successor, Richard Mdluli, is suspended after being arrested on a number of criminal charges.
2011: Crime intelligence financial officer Major General Solly Lazarus and the division's head of logistics, Colonel Hein Barnard, are suspended and charged with theft, fraud and corruption.
2013: Captain Morris Tshabalala, nicknamed Captain KGB, is arrested and accused of masterminding cash-in-transit robberies, involving R30-million.
2013: Major General Chris Ngcobo, acting head of crime intelligence, protection and security services, is placed on special leave by national police commissioner Riah Phiyega after “discrepancies" emerged about his educational qualifications.