Tangeni Amupadhi
Superintendent Jan Brink religiously abides by the proverb that the early bird catches the worm. He says it is the only way he can catch crooked cops napping.
So he was up before the crack of dawn on Wednesday morning, travelling to Soweto, Roodepoort and Krugersdorp.
His team arrested police in a surprise swoop they believe has smashed South Africa’s most organised car-theft and hijacking syndicates.
The anti-corruption unit which Brink heads also arrested eight ringleaders of luxury-car hijacking gangs and discovered falsified documents, engine number tags, an unlicensed pistol and three cars, bringing to 63 the number of vehicles recovered so far.
“We have a very strong case. We went undercover and had time to build a tight case,” says the upbeat Brink. “It is a boost for us – more so because this time we didn’t just arrest corrupt cops, but also the guys who bribed them.”
Sergeants George Kiser, Gert van Wyk, Johannes Syffret, Inspector Greg Engelhardt, ex-policeman Henk Botha and alleged hijackers Jeff Gazi and Nico Mogorosi appeared in the Roodepoort Regional Court on Wednesday.
Van Wyk was released on R5 000 bail, while bail applications by Kiser and Gazi were postponed to later this month. The anti-corruption unit has opposed the others’ bail applications.
So far the unit has arrested 16 people, half of them police. Another officer is on the run.
The unit discovered the car-theft and hijacking ring by chance. It was the result of a year-long investigation into Soweto radio-control officers whom Brink and his investigators thought were taking small bribes.
Their probe led to an intricate web of at least six groups which targeted BMWs, Volvos, Kombis, 4X4s and other top-of-the-range vehicles.
Police officers seemed to be the most important link in the operations of the syndicates.
“They did at least four things for the syndicates. They bought and sold stolen cars, they supplied those cars, they legalised the stolen or hijacked cars and they offered protection to gang members,” says Brink.
Once a car was stolen or hijacked, the gang deleted the engine and serial numbers. They would then report that the car was stolen from them, leaving some form of identification in it so that it was traced back to one of the gang members.
Once the car was recovered, a police officer working with the gang would point unsuspecting colleagues to the “owner” who came to identify his “stolen” car.
Because the original engine and chassis numbers had been removed, the vehicle theft unit would issue new numbers.
“And the stolen car is back on road – legalised. More than 50% of the cars we recovered had been legalised that way,” Brink says.
While the syndicates had been operating mainly in Johannesburg and Pretoria, they have also been linked to similar operations in Durban and parts of the Eastern and Western Cape.
Brink says they have “removed” most of the syndicate leaders, but he had to place his undercover agent into protective custody a few weeks ago when gang members discovered they were tricked into selling and buying cars from the anti-corruption unit for the past year.
Brink says with pride that his unit is working hard to restore the tainted image of the South African Police Service (SAPS).
Police say the increase in graft cases in the SAPS is a sign that the anti- corruption unit is doing its work effectively.
“We in the police sort out our own problems, we don’t cover up,” says Brink. “If a policeman commits a crime, we will hunt him down.”