Dumisani Khumalo identified the “Big 5” cartel as a sophisticated
organised crime groups. Khumalo showing comminications seized.
Photo: Delwyn Verasamy
The Madlanga inquiry into police corruption and criminality has heard a dramatic week of testimony that painted a picture of a compromised police services deeply embedded by political interference and criminal cartels.
The inquiry was cut short after crime intelligence boss Dumisani Khumalo fell ill, and proceedings will resume on 13 October due to commissioner Sesi Baloyi’s unavailability.
Earlier in the week, Khumalo expanded on claims implicating suspended police minister Senzo Mchunu with evidence drawn from text messages between his ally Brown Mogotsi and murder suspect Vusimuzi ‘Cat’ Matlala.
Khumalo described Mokgotsi as a middleman who acted on behalf of Mchunu to channel payments from Matlala in exchange for classified information, alerts about police operations and impeding investigations.
Chaired by retired judge Mbuyiseli Madlanga, the inquiry is looking into allegations made by KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi about the influence of criminal syndicates in the criminal justice system. The allegations placed Mchunu at the centre of the rot, but he has insisted he is innocent.
National police commissioner Fannie Masemola testified last week that Mchunu’s instruction to immediately dissolve a task team investigating political killings last December amounted to ministerial overreach, saying the unit had been key to grappling with assassinations since its establishment in 2018.
The commissioner testified that the minister’s decision came just weeks after the arrest of Gauteng cartel suspects Katiso Molefe and Matlala, who both face murder charges.
Phone records seized during Matlala’s arrest linked him directly to Mchunu and deputy national commissioner Shadrack Sibiya, which Masemola said raised suspicion that the disbandment was designed to protect criminal networks.
Chats presented to the commission showed Mokgotsi acting on behalf of Mchunu by warning Matlala about planned counter-intelligence raids, requesting payments to secure ANC delegate votes, and promising that the task team investigating him would be dissolved.
“The task team that came to your house and harassed you has been dissolved/disbanded,” one of Mokgotsi’s messages read.
Khumalo said the texts also revealed Mokgotsi’s role in facilitating payments for a R360 million South African Police Service health contract awarded to Medicare24, a company owned by Matlala.
“In pursuit of these goals, Mr Mokgotsi in a mistaken belief that an investigation is being conducted by the political killing task team, pursued the disestablishment of the task team,” Khumalo said.
Mkhwanazi made the allegations during the first week of the inquiry, which were backed by Masemola’s account. He described it as “irrational and irregular”, as the team was working on 115 active cases.
Mkhwanazi alleged that Sibiya facilitated the removal of 121 dockets from the task team, only for them to be returned after he publicly accused syndicates of interfering in investigations.
Khumalo this week, identified the “Big 5” cartel, led by Matlala, as one of the most sophisticated organised crime groups in South Africa. Based in Gauteng, the cartel allegedly controls networks involved in drugs, hijacking, extortion, human trafficking, tender fraud and political assassinations.
“The Big 5 have already penetrated the political sphere and there are documented cases of high-profile connections to the political arena, senior politicians alleged to be complicit and or wilfully blind to the syndicate operations,” said Khumalo.
He warned that cartels such as the Big 5 had made the criminal justice system itself a “strategic objective”, recruiting allies in law enforcement, politics and the judiciary to suppress evidence and obstruct prosecutions.