Fake it ’till you make it: How an SA arms company built UAE armoured vehicles

Open Secrets can now publish this story following a three-week gag order obtained by International Convoy Protection (ICP) from the Western Cape Division of the High Court in Cape Town that prevented us from saying anything about this story. ICP declined to answer Open Secrets’ questions and went to court instead. In this article, we have included material from ICP’s court papers that addresses many of the questions we sent them.

In 2025, the government of Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) received its first Kasser II armoured vehicles, part of a consignment of 160 ordered from the International Golden Group (IGG) in the UAE. The vehicles were probably loaded into containers in the UAE’s Tawazun Industrial Park, a UAE free zone with a focus on the defence sector and home to IGG. From there, they were shipped to Matadi port, the DRC’s main port on the banks of the Congo River.

This was not the first time the mine-resistant and ambush-protected Kasser II vehicles had made a showing on African soil. Just a week before the shipment landed in the DRC, 12 of these battle-ready all-terrain vehicles were shown off at Togo’s independence day military parade.

This was projected as another example of UAE prowess in delivering weapons and defence technology in partnership with African states. But was it?

This explanation misses the most crucial information. The Kasser II vehicles may have a “Made in the Emirates” sticker on them, but they were in fact designed by a South African firm and built by South African engineers. The production took place inside the UAE’s notoriously secretive free trade zones (FTZs) as part of a R775-million contract.

Open Secrets can now reveal this story in full, relying on a trove of emails, company documents, trade data and eyewitness accounts. These were provided to Open Secrets by a whistleblower whom we call Casper. South African armoured vehicle company Integrated Convoy Protection (ICP) provided the intellectual property, parts, manufacturing capacity and staff to build the Kasser II. As part of the deal between ICP and IGG, vehicles and components for building them may have been exported from South Africa without the permits required for the export of weapons, though ICP denies this.

The ‘Emirates Kasser II’

The Kasser II Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected (MRAP) 4x4 vehicle was first unveiled at the International Defence Exhibition and Conference (Idex) in 2021, and has since been a regular at UAE pavilions at arms fairs around the world. It’s an imposing armoured vehicle – nearly seven metres long and 2.5m wide. The version sent to the DRC is also fitted with firepower that includes cannons and machine guns mounted on the vehicles. These are not mere armoured trucks, but purpose-built war machines.

Officially built by Abu Dhabi-based company M4 industries, the Emiratis trumpet the Kasser II as an example of the successes of their booming defence industry. However, as many defence journalists have noted since its release, the Kasser II is the spitting image of the South African-manufactured Reva V armoured personnel carrier (APC), albeit with some minor changes.

In January 2025, Defence Web wrote that the Reva V vehicles “appear to be entering service in the Middle East as the Kasser II”. In response, ICP told the journalist that it could not comment on its clients due to non-disclosure agreements, but insisted it “only manufactured vehicles in South Africa”.

ICP

While you might not have heard of ICP, you’ve probably seen its vehicles on South African roads. In addition to vehicles made for use in war, ICP makes a range of vehicles for security companies such as Fidelity and ADT in South Africa, including for patrolling and cash in transit, as well as vehicles for use in “riot and unrest situations”.

The promotional video below for an unrelated venture contains current CEO Nadine Rynners speaking about the company. ICP has about 120 staff and works from its base southeast of Pretoria, where suburban sprawl meets game ranch fences.

The company was registered in 2002 by former special forces Lieutenant Colonel Philippus Johannes (Flip) Marx. Marx had served in the special forces (the elite military unit known as the Recces) from the 1970s and continued to do so after 1994 until, believing he would not be promoted any further, turned to private business. Marx continued to run the business until he suffered a severe stroke in 2022 while in the UAE working on the company’s contract with IGG.

ICP’s first big order came its way courtesy of the United States’ illegal war of aggression against Iraq in 2003. Infamously, that war was in large part “outsourced” to private military contractors and security firms. ICP met their urgent need for armoured vehicles suited to an insurgency, and that could protect troops from improvised roadside bombs. They provided around 150 Reva V vehicles that were built both in South Africa and at temporary facilities set up by ICP in both Baghdad and Jordan.

In a 2020 internal company newsletter, ICP bragged about how almost all these vehicles had survived the Iraq war and had been shipped back to the US after their withdrawal from Iraq for use by local law enforcement and Swat teams.

The other main client of ICP since the mid-2000s has been Thailand, where the military remains a dominant force in politics. ICP has been supplying both the Thai army and Thai police with armoured vehicles, including the Reva III, since the mid-2000s.

According to our whistleblower, Casper, the ICP’s key middlemen for most of their contracts have been David Hirschowitz and his son Dean. David Hirschowitz was a director at ICP from at least 2007 and died in 2019. In documents provided to Open Secrets, Dean is referred to as ICP’s “agent” in Thailand, and is pictured at a November 2019 arms exhibition in Bangkok alongside senior ICP staff and officials from South Africa’s military and Ministry of Defence. Dean is also copied into emails and other correspondence throughout the contract between ICP and IGG, including that related to operational matters.

The Hirschowitz family were allegedly key to setting up this relationship, and they certainly have connections in the UAE. In 2019, court papers implicated David Hirschowitz in paying kickbacks to individuals linked to senior ANC politician Zweli Mkhize to secure Mkhize’s support for PIC funding to Hirschowitz’s Israeli company Tahal. Mkhize, at the time, denied any wrongdoing.

As part of these efforts, Tahal allegedly paid for Hirschowitz, Mkhize and another ANC official to fly to Abu Dhabi to secure funding, indicating relationships with financiers in the UAE. Dean Hirschowitz did not respond to Open Secrets’ questions about his role in the contract.

It was reported that the Tahel project didn’t come to fruition, and Mkhize told Business Day it was not unusual for companies to sponsor trips during his time at the ANC’s headquarters, Luthuli House. It’s unclear what happened to the case.

A long-running relationship and a new contract

According to ICP’s court submissions, it has had contracts with IGG to supply it with armoured vehicles, parts and support since at least 2015. IGG is owned by the Edge group, a state-owned Emirati arms conglomerate that owns at least 25 subsidiary arms companies in the UAE, and has grown to become one of the largest arms companies in the world.

South Africa’s links with the Edge Group run deep. The Vice President of International Business at Edge, Miles Chambers, is a South African, and companies within Edge employ many South Africans.

ICP has been exporting Reva vehicles to the UAE for a long time. However, the nature of that relationship changed when the parties signed a new contract in 2020.

The whistleblower, Casper, provided Open Secrets with a signed July 2020 contract between the Emirati-based International Golden Group (IGG) and ICP. The title of the contract is “For Supply of Modified Reva V 4x4 Vehicle Armored Personal (sic) Carriers to be assembled in the United Arab Emirates under new name (‘Kasser II’)”.

The contract was for US$45-million (R775-million at the time) and required ICP to “deliver one hundred Advanced Semi Knock Down kits (“ASKD”) for the Vehicles as well as spare parts, services, and know how… in order to assemble the Vehicles in Buyer’s facilities at Tawazun Industrial Park”, and anticipated delivery between September 2020 and July 2021.

The contract makes clear that the Kasser II is not just based on the Reva V. Rather, the intellectual property, manufacturing of parts and spares, and expertise, all came from South Africa’s ICP. This is only the latest example of South African defence IP being used by Emirati companies to build their military industrial base.

Braais and plastic pools in the desert

While the 2020 contract was between ICP and the IGG, reports about the Kasser II indicate it is manufactured by a company called M4 Industries, based in the Tawazun Industrial Park in Abu Dhabi. M4 Industries has no apparent online presence and is described by military news media as “relatively unknown”. Casper says this is because M4 Industries was set up by the IGG specifically for this project.

This is borne out by the email correspondence, minutes of meetings and other internal company documents in our possession. They confirm that there were two companies set up in the UAE to be part of the process.

The first was R5 Automotives, a company set up by ICP in the Jebel Ali Free Zone (Jafza) with the help of 7 EM Consulting, a company services provider in the UAE. R5 Automotives was described as an “ICP subsidiary” in emails to IGG staff, and it was invoiced by 7EM to assist in getting UAE visas for ICP staff members.

R5 Automotives was set up to receive the SKDs (semi knockdown kits) from ICP. These kits were packed at ICP’s manufacturing facilities in Pretoria. From there, they were loaded on to trucks and driven down to Durban port. They would then be shipped to R5 Automotives before being sent by road to IGG’s facilities in the Tawazun Industrial Park (TIP). In a humorous turn, Casper says that the decision to register R5 in Jafza was a blunder, because it meant that duties had to be paid when moving the vehicle kits from there to TIP, as they would leave the free zone.

In court papers, ICP argues that the only reason for setting up R5 Automotives was to address the logistical and shipping constraints brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, including the need for more warehouse space.

When the kits arrived at TIP, there were ICP staff on hand to complete the vehicles. An ICP memorandum from April 2022 confirmed that up to 20 ICP engineering staff and managers had been staying at rented accommodation in the UAE while constructing the Kasser II vehicles, with senior ICP managers staying in “villas”.

To give the rented accommodation a home-away-from-home feeling, the ICP staff built a dedicated braai area and bought a plastic pool to deal with the desert heat, according to Casper. The April 2022 memo also suggested that while some ICP staff would return to South Africa, quite a few would probably stay on as permanent staff of M4 Industries.

Other documents show that ICP managed almost all the processes related to constructing the vehicles. ICP purchased additional parts, including glass for the windscreens from a company in Israel, and window mounts and fire suppression kits from companies in South Africa. Moreover, M4 Industries meeting minutes and project plans were often drafted by ICP staff.

Were the exports approved by the South African government?

It is clear then that the Kasser II is a South African-designed vehicle that was exported in kit form from South Africa, and put together again by ICP employees working in the UAE. The next question is whether these exports complied with South African law. Based on the evidence presented to us by Casper and our analysis of South Africa’s publicly available arms export records and the law, they may not have.

In South Africa, anything designed for use in war, including vehicles, can be exported only following approval from the South African arms export regulator – the National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC).

This body is made up of Cabinet ministers appointed by the President. Crucially, the NCACC is also required to approve the export of equipment, spare parts, components or other accessories that are designed to be built into weapons of war. In this case, the export of the parts for the Reva vehicles to be turned into the Kasser II appears to require approval.

ICP vehemently denies this. In its court papers, filed this month, ICP claims two things. First, it shared two contracting permits granted to it in 2015 and 2019 for the contracts to sell 200 Reva III vehicles and 70 Reva V vehicles, to IGG. In both cases, the UAE armed forces were listed as the “end user” of the vehicles. ICP insists it exported only full vehicles when in possession of a permit.

Second, and more importantly for the story of the 2020 contract, ICP claims that – in terms of the 2020 contract – it only supplied semi-knock-down kits, “off the shelf” parts, and some dual-use items.

ICP’s position is that it did not seek any export permits for these items because they did not consider them “controlled items”; those that require export permits in terms of South African law. Crucially, ICP argues that these are not “controlled items”, “without proof of design intent”.

ICP references “design intent” because South African law is clear that commercial and dual-use parts are “controlled” (ie they require an export permit) when they are “specially designed for the parent item” – that is, a controlled item. This means that parts specifically designed for an armoured vehicle – even if dual-use goods or commercial items – require permits.

Several factors suggest that all parts supplied in terms of this contract were specifically designed for use in an armoured vehicle – the Kasser II. For one, the contract title explicitly states that the parts would be “assembled in the UAE under a new name (Kasser II)”. Second, in July 2021, a letter from ICP CEO Flip Marx said that all “management and staff involved in manufacturing the Kasser II” were required to get his sign-off on any technical changes to the vehicles.

This suggests ICP had full knowledge of the design intent of all parts supplied. Finally, ICP staff were responsible for constructing the vehicles in the UAE using the parts supplied.

We submitted detailed questions to the NCACC about whether export permits were applied for and granted in this case. They did not answer these questions, but did tell Open Secrets that “this matter is receiving attention. The police are investigating”.

How South Africa built the UAE defence sector

If these vehicles and related technology were sent in violation of the laws on arms exports, it would not be the first time. In 2021, Open Secrets investigated systemic failures by the NCACC to prevent South African weapons from being used in significant human rights abuses abroad.

In that instance, the NCACC had failed to properly consider applications to export weapons or to enforce the rules that ensure South African weapons were not being sold on to parties that had not bought them, in contravention of end-user certificates. That investigation showed that numerous South African-made and exported weapons had been found in use in Yemen, including by parties that had not purchased them.

But this story is part of another significant pattern in South Africa’s arms trade: the long-term and systematic movement of defence IP and resources from South Africa to the UAE. This is happening in licit and illicit ways.

Both state-owned firm Denel and private arms company Paramount have alleged that companies in the UAE have unlawfully obtained their defence IP, with the possible assistance of local employees. Some of these allegations are being investigated by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU), which has confirmed that it has referred criminal conduct to the National Prosecuting Authority.

According to an investigation by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), one of these cases concerns NIMR, an Edge company. The CEO of NIMR, Abri du Plessis, is a South African who formerly held senior positions at Denel and BAE Systems.

The SIU investigated a complaint submitted by Denel alleging that NIMR accessed Denel IP in an unauthorised deal signed off by a Denel employee who was offered a senior position inside NIMR.

Among the SIU findings was that Denel workers had obtained and shared company IP for armoured vehicles without permission.

Another Edge company, Abu Dhabi Autonomous Systems Investments Company (Adasi), has also been under the spotlight. Adasi is at the centre of a bankruptcy filing in the United States made by a subsidiary of the South African private arms company Paramount. A Paramount subsidiary struck a deal with Adasi in 2016, but OCCRP reported that the deal collapsed after Adasi was acquired by Edge. Edge claims the deal included a transfer of aircraft IP, but the transfer never happened.

ICP’s exploits in the UAE are part of an emerging pattern of South African arms companies entering into lethal business with companies in the UAE, despite that the UAE has been known to arm conflicts where there are clear war crimes, such as in Yemen and Sudan.

In this case, ICP supplied everything in terms of a commercial contract, and there is no allegation of theft. However, the relationship was no doubt made easier by the fact that the UAE defence sector – including IGG – has been built and maintained by white South Africans, many of whom, like Marx, used to be part of the apartheid military architecture.

In this case, one of IGG’s senior engineers responsible for the Kasser project and for liaising with ICP was Steve Britz. Britz worked as a Denel engineer for 28 years from 1981 to 2009, when he moved to IGG. He is one of at least 300 Denel engineers and managers who have made the move to the UAE; so many that it’s reported that many board meetings of Emirati defence companies are conducted in Afrikaans.

Britz and IGG did not respond to Open Secrets’ questions.

Unanswered questions

In the documents Open Secrets accessed, there is evidence that ICP and IGG were negotiating a new contract in the middle of 2022, following the final delivery of the 100 vehicles in terms of the 2020 contract. Minutes of a meeting between representatives of M4 Industries and ICP in April 2022 suggest that ICP would not provide all the IP for the vehicles at that point, and wanted to keep this as something to sell in the future, possibly as part of a new contract.

We do not have access to anything that shows whether a new contract was signed. However, ICP claimed in court papers that IGG remains its single “biggest customer” and referenced “pending contracts”, though it did not indicate the nature of any new contracts with IGG.

In 2025, Kasser II vehicles are clearly being manufactured on an ongoing basis in the UAE in sufficient numbers to regularly supply multiple international clients. These clients include the DRC, where a 2022 escalation in conflict – backed by Rwanda – saw intense fighting extend a decades-long regional and civil war; and Togo – a country ruled as a dynastic military-style dictatorship in which the Gnassingbé family holds almost all power, protest is harshly crushed, and human rights violations are widespread.

It is essential that there is more effective oversight over our arms exports. Exports of South African armoured vehicles to these countries should be subject to proper consideration by our authorities, including their possible impact on conflict and human rights. DM