CIA spies, Zuma-like ties and inevitable lies — SA’s conspiracy claims landslide

We might unknowingly rub shoulders with US-deployed Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives, and spies from other countries in South Africa.

It would be naïve to think that if international drug-trafficking gangs operate in and via this country, that spooks don’t too.

And if claims emanating from certain individuals are to be believed, some CIA agents have recruited figures who hold – or have held – powerful positions in South Africa’s government, especially in law enforcement.

This isn’t totally implausible.

Read more: Exposed from the JFK files — the CIA chief, the Russian agent and the South African connection

But significantly weakening the “American spies among us” accusations is that these have repeatedly surfaced, in similar scenarios, to the point that they have now almost become a trend.

The latest claims of US spook infiltration have seeped out of South Africa’s gigantic law enforcement scandal.

Zuma and the Scorpions

Before we get there, though, let’s start with disgraced former president Jacob Zuma, who headed the ANC’s intelligence department decades ago.

This saga involves the Directorate of Special Operations, better known as the Scorpions, that came about in the late 1990s to fight high-level organised crime and corruption.

Zuma, suspected of corruption in the arms deal saga which dates to the late 1990s, claimed to have come across information that Scorpions head Leonard McCarthy was a CIA snoop.

Read more: Scorpions’ 2009 disbandment ‘a mistake, and SA’s problems prove it’ — Firoz Cachalia

A portion of a 2021 high court judgment in this matter said Zuma alleged that he had “been advised of very damaging information relating to how McCarthy… was in regular contact with intelligence operatives of foreign governments in which he freely discussed my prosecution with them”.

This, the judgment said, referred to McCarthy “allegedly having been an intelligence operative handled by a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent.”

But it was found that these claims were “speculative conclusions without any factual basis”.

The Scorpions and their critical investigations were dissolved in 2009, the year Zuma became head of state.

Maphatsoe and Madonsela

A few years later, in 2014, staunch Zuma ally Kebby Maphatsoe, who was defence and military veterans deputy minister at the time, accused the Public Protector at the time, Thuli Madonsela, of being a CIA agent.

The South African government distanced itself from his accusation.

Madonsela went on to release a report on State Capture, which implicated Zuma.

So, Zuma and Maphatsoe accused individuals involved in investigating him (Zuma) of being CIA agents.

Claims in this murky arena now persist.

These are emerging under Cyril Ramaphosa’s presidency, but are still reminiscent of Zuma’s claims.

Last week, ANC-aligned North West businessman Brown Mogotsi, who has emerged as a key figure in South Africa’s rapidly growing law enforcement scandal, became the latest to cry “CIA agent”.

He was forced into public scrutiny a few months ago because he was accused of being a conduit between sidelined Police Minister Senzo Mchunu and organised crime accused Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala.

Mogotsi versus Mkhwanazi

Mogotsi has attracted extra attention around this for various reasons.

This month he claimed to be the victim of a shooting, an attempted hit, in Vosloorus, Gauteng. Bullets indeed struck a vehicle he said he’d been in.

Police are investigating.

Previously, Mogotsi made an array of claims, including that he was involved in the 2023 arrest in Tanzania of convicted murderer and rapist Thabo Bester after Bester faked his own death and escaped from a prison here in 2022.

Last week, Mogotsi testified before the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry that he was a police Crime Intelligence informant, which appears to be true.

Read more: From CIA to Crime Intelligence: Brown Mogotsi’s testimony in five sensational claims

He also claimed, without supporting evidence, that KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi and Zulu King Misuzulu kaZwelithini were CIA recruits.

Madlanga Commission evidence leader Matthew Chaskalson SC didn’t buy vast chunks of Mogotsi’s testimony, though, and essentially accused him of being a professional liar.

It’s important to note that Mkhwanazi, who Mogotsi claims is a CIA mole, a few months ago ignited what has developed into South Africa’s unprecedented law enforcement scandal.

Mkhwanazi went public in July with accusations that a drug trafficking cartel had infiltrated South Africa’s law enforcement, politics and private security.

It was also Mkhwanazi who alleged that Mogotsi connected Mchunu to Matlala.

The Madlanga Commission is investigating Mkhwanazi’s accusations, so it was at those hearings that Mogotsi was testifying last week when he claimed Mkhwanazi is a CIA plant.

This means, like Zuma before him, Mogotsi has rolled out the CIA agent claim against someone – Mkhwanazi – who flagged accusations of wrongdoing against him.

This all creates the impression that CIA agent claims emanate from individuals under investigation and are made against those investigating them.

‘Plots to oust cops’

Last week Mogotsi also testified that Mkhwanazi had wanted to remove Crime Intelligence’s Major General Feroz Khan, who heads counter and security intelligence, from this position.

Mkhwanazi, meanwhile, previously alleged there was a plot involving certain police officers, some in the Crime Intelligence arena, to topple the overall Crime Intelligence boss Dumisani Khumalo and implode the unit’s investigations. (Khumalo was arrested earlier this year on corruption-style charges he has denied.)

The veracity of all these accusations aside, it is known that fierce battles play out in the South African Police Service and that it is riddled with distrust.

A hearing parallel to the Madlanga Commission, and investigating the same accusations, is Parliament’s ad hoc committee.

Read more: ‘There will be fightback’ — Mchunu’s chief staffer alleges Mkhwanazi threatened him over PKTT scandal

Last week, Mchunu’s chief of staff, Cedrick Nkabinde, testified before it.

Before taking up the position on Mchunu’s team, Nkabinde worked at the cop watchdog, the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid).

Last week, he testified before the ad hoc committee about an alleged conspiracy dating to about 2017 when he was with Ipid.

Nkabinde claimed a team had been assembled to prevent acting national police commissioner at the time, Khomotso Phahlane, from being appointed to the position permanently.

The alleged team’s goal was to get Robert McBride, who was heading Ipid, into the national commissioner seat.

Phahlane, meanwhile, was later accused of corruption and countered that he was collateral in a battle over policing, which is essentially what Nkabinde has now testified.

‘Clean man or agent?’

Last week, Nkabinde told the ad hoc committee that the alleged team targeting Phahlane in 2017 had included forensic investigator Paul O’Sullivan, whose name has cropped up in various policing and State Capture-style controversies over the years.

(In reaction to this, O’Sullivan reportedly said he would lodge a criminal complaint against Nkabinde for lying under oath, and described the allegations as part of a “broader conspiracy”.)

Questions were asked in previous ad hoc proceedings about whether O’Sullivan was a UK MI6 intelligence agent.

Mkhwanazi had responded to this, testifying that he heard “talks” about this and claimed that O’Sullivan had citizenship in three countries, which made him “wonder”.

Message read by Mr Nkabinde allegedly from Mr Paul O’Sullivan:

“Get ready you lying crook. I am going to make sure you spend some years in prison. You will pay for your crimes guaranteed”. #AdHocCommittee @ParliamentofRSA pic.twitter.com/DtnihJxdVI

— Justice-and-security-Cluster (@JustSecuCluster) November 19, 2025

“Is Paul O’Sullivan a clean man or an agent? This country must not sit back and be run by Paul O’Sullivan,” Mkhwanazi said.

This is where things twist back to former national police commissioner Jackie Selebi.

O’Sullivan was among those who investigated Selebi in the run-up to the top cop’s downfall.

And Selebi had shared apparent concerns similar to Zuma, about foreign infiltration – from the UK and US – into law enforcement.

O’Sullivan may be called as a witness before the ad hoc committee, so we might still hear his version of events, which he has not yet had a chance to share on an official state platform.

Deflection

It is beneath this landslide of claims and counterclaims about conspiracies, dirty plots and intelligence infiltration that policing is meant to be thoroughly carried out in South Africa.

There are claims in this overall mess that directly contradict each other, which means that, while some are probably true, some must be lies.

The assertions that intermittently surface about foreign intelligence agents often dominate the news and eclipse the granular tragedies constantly happening around us at the hands of criminals.

Read more: How Jacob Zuma’s spies trampled on national security and citizens’ rights to change SA’s trajectory

Mass shootings keep on occurring – the proof is in the incessantly increasing murder toll – yet attention may be pulled towards CIA agent accusations for which no conclusive proof is offered.

If at some point foreign intelligence control of certain law enforcers is confirmed, well, the conspiracy chaos in South Africa will become even more frenetic.

But if it is found that CIA claims are simply that – claims – then the point of those would be to divert focus from reality and truth.

Deflection, of course, is one of the many tools that intelligence agents are trained to use, for various reasons.

It’s also what crooks carry up their sleeves and pull out when in a corner. DM