Lieutenant-General Jacobs’ recommendation was forwarded to National Commissioner General Khehla Sitole, Deputy Commissioner Crime Detection Lieutenant-General Lebeoana Jacob Tshumane and Deputy National Commissioner Human Resources Lieutenant-General Bonang Ngwenya on 18 January.

Daily Maverick has learned that Jacobs made the findings and recommendation after a complaint was lodged by Cape Town anti-gang unit member, Lieutenant-Colonel Charl Kinnear, who has spearheaded several investigations into Cape Town’s violent underworld turf war over the nightlife economy.

Kinnear sent a detailed 59-page complaint on 29 December to Jacobs and included IPID as well as nine other senior provincial and divisional commissioners, setting out how the rogue Crime Intelligence unit, consisting of at least six members, had been targeting their colleagues, interfering with investigations and acting criminally.

Kinnear, in his complaint, detailed how some officers had attempted to interfere with an investigation into the botched assassination attempt of Cape underworld figure Jerome “Donkie” Booysen at the Spur in Kuils River in on 1 August 2018.

They are also accused of illegally intercepting Kinnear’s phone, stealing cash from from the Mitchells Plain SAPS 13 store, and attempting to defeat the ends of justice by requesting a prisoner to make a false statement against their police colleagues.

Jacobs, in his recommendation, notes that Kinnear’s report indicated and outlined a list of cases that identified Vearey, Kinnear and Jacobs as “suspects”.

“As the divisional commissioner, appointed on 1 April 2018, I have never been informed and or briefed, neither verbally or written, about the existence and or operational activities of the team or unit,” Jacobs said.

The team, said Jacobs, carried and registered cases dockets and also did not report to Divisional Commissioner of Detectives Lieutenant-General Tebello Mosikili, but to Provincial Commissioner of the Western Cape, Lieutenant-General Khombinkosi Jula instead.

Jula previously served as Deputy Police Commissioner in KwaZulu-Natal, before he was transferred to the Western Cape in 2016, replacing Arno Lamoer, the first high-ranking SAPS officer to be sentenced to a 10-year jail term in 2018 on charges of corruption and money laundering.

Jacobs said that even if the Crime Intelligence team had reported to Mosikili “it would have been irregular” as they had worked day-to-day from the offices of Crime Intelligence.

The Crime Intelligence head said that the responsibility for the collection and management of intelligence, as set out in the National Strategic Intelligence Act, was “the exclusive responsibility of the divisional commissioner of Crime Intelligence and not a provincial commissioner.”

He added that the organisational structure of the Crime Intelligence division was such that the line of report “resorts under the command of the civisional commissioner of Crime Intelligence”.

In this instance the civisional commissioner of Crime Intelligence had never “been officially informed and or briefed about the existence and operations” of the team. The officers had therefore operated irregularly and without authorisation, said Jacobs.

“It is the considered view of this office that the existence of the team in its operations and reporting line, outside of the prescribed structure, has served to undermine the integrity of the office of the Division Crime Intelligence and possibly the person of the Divisional Commissioner, Lieutenant-General Jacobs.”

Jacobs concluded that the team “should be disbanded and the legality of operations should be departmentally and criminally investigated”.

One of the brigadiers named in Jacobs’ report to the national commissioner is presently heading a disciplinary inquiry into a Crime Intelligence whistleblower who leaked to the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) details of an alleged R45-million money-laundering exercise a few days before the ANC’s Nasrec elective conference in 2017.

The alleged attempt to purchase a “grabber” at an inflated price was aimed to secure and channel funds to a faction in the ANC’s conference. Several top cops, including the national commissioner, former acting head of Crime Intelligence King Bhoyi Ngcobo, Deputy National Commissioner of Crime Detection Lieutenant-General Lebeoana Tsumane and Deputy National Commissioner of Management Advisory Services Major-General Francinah Ntombenhle Vuma as well as Mininster of Police Fikile Mbalula’s adviser, Bo Mbindwane, have been implicated.

This is one of current IPID head Robert McBride’s most pressing investigations before his tenure as director comes to an end in February. DM