The Randburg Regional Court refused bail to senior Scorpions advocate Portia Kgantsi on Monday.
She was arrested earlier this month for bribery, corruption, extortion and defeating the ends of justice.
Key to the magistrate’s decision was Kgantsi having falsely claimed in an affidavit that she had handed in a valid passport when it was in fact an expired passport and she still had a valid one in her possession.
Also against Kgantsi was a prior conviction for theft, about which she had never told the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).
It is alleged that Kgantsi approached two Nigerians in a police holding cell promising to make their dockets ”disappear” in exchange for R315 000.
At an earlier hearing, Scorpions senior special investigator Pieter van der Merwe testified that Kgantsi was responsible for legal aspects of an investigation into a ”419” scam allegedly run by the men.
She was present when they were arrested and searched.
Van der Merwe told the court the men went to the NPA when Kgantsi demanded an extra R40 000.
She had allegedly sent them an SMS demanding that they transfer R30 000 to her husband’s bank account and deliver R10 000 cash to the holding cells before September 28. She instructed them to hire a car she could use to collect the money from the police station.
Van der Merwe gave evidence that an undercover NPA agent, with a hidden camera, recorded Kgantsi placing a brown envelope filled with marked banknotes into her handbag, which was also seen to contain blank police-docket sheets.
On her arrest, Kgantsi tried to frame the Nigerians, claiming that she was collecting evidence against them with the intention of prosecuting them for offering her money to destroy the dockets.
According to Van der Merwe, Kgantsi later approached a police officer in a separate matter asking for 4kg of hashish — worth an estimated R1-million on the street — confiscated in a Scorpions raid.
She claimed she had already lined up buyers. The deal did not proceed.
The case was postponed to October 30 for further investigation. — Sapa