A Nigerian drug lord once offered Senior Superintendent Ernest Madzhie R1-million to look the other way; the cop stared him straight in the eyes, handcuffed him and escorted him to jail.
”The more policemen take bribes, the more the criminals believe they have a licence to commit crimes,” says Madzhie, a man acclaimed by the police top brass as one of their best.
National Commissioner Jackie Selebi, who early in his tenure recognised Madzhie’s integrity, holds him up as an example of the ideal South African police officer. ”Madzhie is an outstanding, dedicated, committed and honest policeman who has served the South African Police Service and the community of this country with great distinction.”
Madzhie never planned to be a policeman while growing up in rural Venda and still does not conform to the stereotype most South Africans have of cops. In 30 years of service he has never used his gun. His calm manner when dealing with criminals has earned him the respect of his colleagues and even the lawbreakers he regularly puts behind bars.
Madzhie says he would be a multi-millionaire if he had accepted all the bribes offered to him over the years.
”One guy offered me R1-million in exchange for my silence. He told me he could make me rich,” he recalls with a twinkle in his eye. The offer came after he captured a Nigerian drug lord and busted a cocaine importation and distribution network.
Madzhie says criminals have sent all kinds of intermediaries offering him fortunes if he would drop cases against them. He says colleagues, lawyers and even Premier Soccer League soccer players have been used to entreat him to accept bribes. But, he says with steely satisfaction, he has never succumbed. ”I thought about the community and couldn’t imagine using this money to better my life and that of my family while millions suffer and become drug addicts.
”Some robbers will justify their crimes and try to convince me to take the bribe by saying they are just taking back the money the white people robbed from their forefathers.”
Madzhie now works on countering ”419” scam artists.
Section 419 was written into Nigeria’s penal code in the late 1980s to crack down on an advanced scam that hammered victims across the country. The fraudsters pose as friends or relatives of deposed African leaders and send out letters requesting help to move money from frozen accounts. Others claim to be bank officials who have access to vast fortunes that belong to no one.
They promise a sizeable percentage of the funds to their victims and sweeten the deal by saying the transfer will benefit one good cause or another. Once the victims agree, they are sent vast amounts of official-looking paperwork.
The fraudsters usually ask the potential victims to meet them. Many have been held for ransom, robbed or murdered once in the clutches of the scam artists.
The hundreds of millions of rands generated by the scams then finance drug syndicates and other criminal organisations.
As the heat grew in Nigeria the syndicates moved to fresh pastures and many set up shop in South Africa. Madzhie delights in busting their operations and putting them behind bars. His unit has already taken 170 of these con artists off the streets.
Born in a Venda village in 1950, Madzhie started life as a farm boy, herding his father’s goats and sheep and ploughing the fields every day after school.
He loved maths and science, and aspired to be a teacher. But that dream fell flat once he finished school and failed to find a job in Louis Trichardt. In 1972 he travelled to the then Witwatersrand, every rural young man’s El Dorado.
There he joined the police force in desperation. He recalls that white cadets would be passed with a nudge and a wink, even if they fared poorly, but the black recruits often had to repeat their subjects over and over.
In those days few black cops were made commissioned officers. A black policeman could not arrest a white criminal unless a white officer was present.
”Sometimes the criminals would call the office complaining that a black guy was trying to arrest them.”
Madzhie started off doing clerical work — filing, taking complaints and writing down crime victims’ statements. He was transferred to the narcotics bureau in 1976 as a clerk. Two years later he was made a field cop, investigating shebeens, prostitution, illegal gambling and drug syndicates.
”We were called the vice squad then and conducted all kinds of investigations.”
Things changed. Twenty years later, in 1996, he became a captain. Shortly afterwards he was promoted to superintendent and then to senior superintendent at the Crime Intelligence Management Centre. He has investigated organised crime ever since.
He deals with drug trafficking, cross-border hijacking, transnational crime and foreigners who commit crimes in South Africa. Now he has 30 officers in his unit.
Madzhie has little time for people who whine about crime but fail to come forward to report incidents and present evidence that could help the cops put criminals away. He says it is the duty of citizens to come forward with details of crime. ”Police cannot always smell out where crimes are happening.”