Thabo Bester. Illustration: Lisa Nelson
Dumped bodies, forged passports, large sums of money and a Porsche: it sounds like the plot of a Quentin Tarantino crime movie, but in reality played out in the Thabo Bester saga in South Africa which has exposed systemic failures, corruption and negligence in state departments.
South Africans became spectators of possibly the biggest prison break cover-up in the country’s history after rapist and murderer Bester, escaped from a maximum security prison in May 2022 by faking his own death, only to be tracked down 11 months later in Tanzania.
Bester and his accomplice, celebrity doctor Nandipha Magudumana, were dragged back to South Africa early on Thursday morning, less than a week after they were detained in the tourism gateway city of Arusha, in northern Tanzania.
By Thursday, police had arrested three other people linked to Bester’s escape. Former G4S employee, Senohe Matsoara, and 65-year-old Zolile Sikelele, Magudumana’s father, were arrested over the weekend and appeared in the Bloemfontein magistrate’s court on Tuesday morning. They each face four charges including murder, assisting an inmate to escape and defeating the ends of justice. Matsoara is separately charged with arson and Sikelele with fraud.
The third suspect was an employee at Integritron Integrated Solutions, the company contracted to install and maintain cameras at Mangaung prison. He handed himself over to the police following his suspension on 3 April after failing a polygraph test conducted by Integriton.
A white Porsche was seized in North West and a 28-year-old male driver was detained for questioning as the vehicle seems to belong to Magudumana.
Police Minister Bheki Cele told Mail & Guardian that the South African Police Service (SAPS) was not ruling out internal investigations into its own officers over the matter. Cele said while the department of correctional services was conducting its investigations “it does not mean” the police would not look into its own.
Evidence presented under oath in parliament this week suggests negligence on the part of the police, correctional services and the justice department. Were it not for investigative work by journalists at GroundUp, a montage of state departments and key role players would not have found themselves before the portfolio committee on justice in parliament this week.
For years, Bester and Magudumana connived to deceive and con people out of millions. Details of their fraudulent dealings have gripped the nation and even led to speculation about a possible documentary by streaming giant Netflix.
The streaming platform told the M&G that “Netflix won’t be responding or commenting” on whether it is considering a docuseries on duo, but a source at Netflix South Africa said there was no such plan.
Meanwhile, social media has provided enough entertainment, with some public figures and medical practitioners — who were at the time unaware of Magudumana’s alleged money-making schemes and connection to inmate Bester — rushing to scrub their profiles clean of any evidence linking them to either the celebrity doctor or Bester.
Several celebrity doctors who participated in discussions with Magudumana on her Doctors Network declined to speak to the M&G.
Gauteng anaesthetist Mmereka Patience Martha Ntshani, known as Dr Pashy, has publically distanced herself from Magudumana after her passport was found in the latter’s possession when she was detained in Tanzania.
According to GroundUp, Bester and Magudumana ran a scam construction company called Arum Properties. They convinced several people to pay millions of rands for construction projects, but never delivered the goods. Bester also managed a fake business and tricked dozens of celebrities into attending an event in Sandton for a non-existent company called 21st Century Media. The company was made to look like a subsidiary of 21st Century Fox.
All this was while Bester was in prison since 2012, serving a life sentence for murder and rape. He escaped from the semi-privately owned Mangaung Correctional Centre in Bloemfontein on 3 May 2022 by staging his own death using a fire. For this stunt, he needed a corpse.
According to private investigator, Mike Bolhuis, and reports in the Sunday Times, Magudumana stole three unidentified bodies from state and privately-owned morgues in the Free State.
“The first body [Magudumana] claimed to be her husband, which is the body found in Thabo Bester’s cell,” Bolhuis said, adding that Magudumana falsely claimed the second body — which was later found in a river — was that of her father. The third body remains missing.
The unidentified body used to represent Bester had to be smuggled into the prison.
On Wednesday, multinational security company G4S, which manages the Mangaung prison, gave its account of events after being summoned by parliament. The hearing gave South Africans a glimpse into the operations at Mangaung prison, and what, according to the company, transpired before and after Bester’s staged suicide.
G4S officials testified under oath that the company had received an observation notice from correctional services on 28 February that a vehicle without a gate pass entered the prison’s Sally Port gate on 29 April last year – four days before Bester was presumed dead.
Parliament heard from Gert Beyleveld, the audit and risk director at Mangaung prison, that the vehicle transported a “TV stand cabinet” meant for repairs at the prison’s skills development area. Beyleveld confirmed the cabinet was not searched or inspected upon its arrival.
Parliament committee member Glynnis Breytenbach asked Beyleveld whether the cabinet was big enough to carry a corpse. After a long pause, Beyleveld affirmed: “I think so. Yeah.”
Beyleveld reported the cabinet to the police in early March and removed it “to a secure place” after receiving the correctional services notice at the end of February. According to Beyleveld, the police only examined the cabinet on Saturday. He could not confirm to the committee if the cabinet was forensically examined or removed by the police.
About seven prison employees are subject of an investigation into the cabinet, its contents and the vehicle which transported it into the prison without a pass. G4S previously told the M&G that it had suspended and dismissed three employees over Bester’s escape, including the now-arrested Matsoara.
It further came to light that SAPS has been in possession of the DNA results of the body initially presumed to be Bester’s for over nine months, without acting upon it. The DNA report, which has an 11 July 2022 date stamp, was presented to G4S in early February by the Judicial Inspectorate for Correctional Services (JICS).
According to G4S, the security company was informed at the same meeting in February of the suspicions that Bester had escaped. The DNA of the burnt body found in the cell did not match that of Bester.
JICS CEO Vick Misser told parliament on Thursday that the inspectorate had informed the police and correctional services on 11 August last year that Bester had escaped from prison.
Misser added that on 26 October, the Inspecting Judge for Correctional Services, Justice Edwin Cameron wrote to justice minister Ronald Lamola informing him that: There are indications that, with the collusion of G4S employees and others, a fire was staged in the single-cell of one Thabo Bester (the notoriously named so-called ‘Facebook rapist’) and a corpse was smuggled into the cell with the objective of faking inmate Bester’s death and facilitating his escape.”
JICS resent this letter to Lamola in March and wrote to one of his deputies, Phathekile Holomisa, Misser told parliament.
According to GroundUp, on 30 November, three correctional services officials were suspended, including the director of contract management, the controller at Mangaung Prison and the deputy controller.
Only about two months later did correctional services open a case of escape at the Bloemspruit police station as SAPS “had refused to open a case in prior engagements,” GroundUp reported.
Following a GroundUp report last month about Bester’s escape, the department of correctional services said on 17 March that the investigation into Bester was ongoing. It added that “there are no new developments” and that media reports “were relying heavily on the so-called leaks from unidentified sources”.
Meanwhile, Bester and Nandipha were living in their Hyde Park mansion with Bester brazen enough to visit shopping centres using pseudonyms to get by.
The Citizen reported that when Bester was detained in Tanzania, documents found in his possession identified him as an American citizen, Tommy William Kelly. But Bester used more than 18 pseudonyms including TK Nkwana — name his neighbours knew him by — Piet Timothy and Tom Motsepe.
Information on Bester and Magudumana’s lavish lifestyle and how they got away with alleged fraud and possibly murder is likely to unfold in the coming weeks as more arrests linked to the duo are expected.
Private investigator, Calvin Rafadi, who has knowledge of Magudumana’s numerous companies, urged investors who contributed to her non-profit organisations like Doctors Network to come forward and “avail themselves to police”.
“Better to come forward, before they are picked up on the Doctors Network Bank account and police might think [their] funds were to pay bribes and buy dead bodies,” he said to the M&G.