CROOKED BLUE LINE

SA’s cocaine shame: How cops ‘bungled’ global trafficking cases

Cocaine worth about R300-million has gone missing from state storage, suggesting that members of the SAPS are not just botching basic work procedures, but are also actively colluding with global drug traffickers.

By Caryn Dolley

24 May

Illustrative image: Hat and tape. (Photo: SABC) | Background and powder. (Image: Freepik) | (Design: Bogosi Monnakgotla)

There have been major drug crackdowns in South Africa recently, reaffirming how the country is intricately entwined with global cartel activity.

A R1-billion methamphetamine manufacturing facility was discovered in North West, and a multimillion-rand cocaine consignment was intercepted in KwaZulu-Natal. These busts happened over two weeks, as police witnesses were telling the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry about major procedural lapses involving previous efforts to crack down on illicit drugs.

Some of the police officers outlined their suspicions that colleagues had intentionally scuppered global trafficking cases. There have been suspicions for years that collusion has been taking place. The late national police commissioner Jackie Selebi was convicted over his involvement with a drug dealer in 2010.

However, it is the first time that such granular details about alleged collusion have been shared on an official and public state platform. The police officers who recently testified before the Madlanga Commission have outlined how:

Insufficient space at state forensic science laboratories means confiscated drugs are sometimes kept at facilities with inadequate security;
Cocaine worth about R300-million was stolen while in state storage;
Crime scenes have been botched; and
Evidence has been contaminated, weakening important transnational cases.

Over several months, Daily Maverick has also heard concerns from individuals linked to policing about how intercepted drug consignments are being mishandled. Some sources have claimed that stashes have been recycled – in other words, put back on the market after the police had seized them.

In this way, informants can provide information on different busts that involve the same drugs and get repeat rewards for it. (This has not been officially confirmed.)

The South African Police Service (SAPS), meanwhile, reiterated to Daily Maverick this week that it has strict protocols in place for handling drug cases. It says it is prioritising these crackdowns.

P4 Caryn Cocaine trail — Thirty-two blocks of cocaine were recovered from the air-conditioning compartment of a bus during an operation involving officers from Durban Operational Response Services and the Serious Organised Crime Investigation unit. The buses were shipped from a South American country and were destined for Gauteng. (Photo: SAPS)

So, although the SAPS says it is tightening its grip on drug trafficking, police officers are suspicious that their colleagues have been contributing to the criminality or are simply failing at doing the basic work necessary to combat it, thereby impeding investigations.

Recent cases: Mexican and Brazilian connections

South Africa is a drug transit point as well as a manufacturing and consumer hub. It also has harbours able to handle mass drug consignments.

Sources with ties to law enforcement have recently told Daily Maverick that cartel activity, especially linked to Mexico, appears to be increasing in South Africa.

Daily Maverick previously reported that various cases suggested that Mexican cartels – Sinaloa and Jalisco – were among the international organised crime gangs operating here. There have since been more developments. On 13 May, the police announced that 11 suspects were arrested in connection with a drug manufacturing facility discovered on a farm in Swartruggens, a small farming town in North West.

Five of the suspects are from Mexico, two from Mozambique and one from Zimbabwe, while three are South Africans. The drug facility on the farm was estimated to be worth more than R1-billion.

“Preliminary investigations indicate that the discovered laboratory is the fourth drug laboratory in South Africa with alleged Mexican links,” according to a police statement.

This backs what sources have said – that there is increasing cartel activity in the country involving Mexicans.

Cocaine smuggling connections between Brazil and South Africa are also back in focus. Several cases involve “couriers”, also known as drug mules, who travel as passengers on aeroplanes while concealing illicit drug consignments.

A suspect who arrived from Brazil in April was arrested at Johannesburg’s OR Tambo International Airport after cocaine with an estimated street value of R8.7-million was allegedly discovered in their luggage.

Brazil’s federal police also announced that a suspect was detained at Guarulhos International Airport in São Paulo after a 100kg drug consignment was intercepted just before a plane took off for Johannesburg.

Meanwhile, drug shipments from Brazil continue arriving in South Africa. Earlier this month, cocaine worth R13-million was intercepted at the harbour in Durban.

Police said the consignment was concealed in the air-conditioning compartment of a bus. “The buses were shipped from a South American country and were destined for Gauteng,” the SAPS reported.

This international drug route – from South America to Durban harbour and on to Gauteng – is what KwaZulu-Natal police boss Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi previously warned about, which brings us back to the Madlanga Commission.

Brazen burglary

The commission is investigating accusations Mkhwanazi made during a press conference in July last year that a drug trafficking cartel, subsequently identified as the Big Five, has infiltrated South Africa’s criminal justice sector, politics and private security. The commission’s proceedings, which have been running for eight months, recently narrowed their focus to illicit drug cases, the crux of Mkhwanazi’s accusations.

Two cocaine crackdowns were analysed. The first happened on 22 June 2021, when a 541kg consignment shipped from Brazil and worth between R200-million and R250-million was intercepted at a container depot in Isipingo, KwaZulu-Natal.

Major General Hendrik Flynn, who heads the Serious Organised Crime Investigation component of the Hawks, told the commission that the Isipingo crime scene was poorly handled. Instead of sealing it off, officers felt that the area was getting too busy and decided to move the cocaine elsewhere. Flynn explained that this went against how officers were trained to deal with crime scenes, which could not simply be shifted for reasons of convenience.

Officers decided to keep the cocaine consignment at the Hawks’ offices in Port Shepstone on the South Coast, which the police knew lacked proper security. There were no CCTV cameras and a contract with a private armed response company had lapsed.

Several months later, in November 2021, the cocaine was stolen from a walk-in safe inside the building in Port Shepstone. It became the eighth burglary or break-in attempt there over a decade.

The Madlanga Commission heard that the thieves had known exactly where the cocaine was stored and how to access it. They also knew how to cut open the locks to the walk-in safe, which required a certain type of expertise. The theft is now considered an inside job. As Flynn told the Madlanga Commission: “I’m of the view it’s no coincidence and that the sequence of events is indeed […] by design, if I can perhaps word it as such.”

He also reiterated that organised crime thrived on collusion: “There’s always an element of corruption involved.”

Mkhwanazi previously referred to the stolen Port Shepstone cocaine, saying that after it was stolen, the thieves moved it to Johannesburg, where it was again looted. He alleged that this looting had sparked “a majority of the murders” that followed in Johannesburg – including, apparently, that of Oupa John Sefoka, better known as DJ Sumbody, who was shot dead in November 2022.

Contaminated crime scene

Meanwhile, the second key drug bust on which the commission recently focused took place while the Isipingo-intercepted cocaine was still being stored in the Port Shepstone building before the burglary. These two cases may be linked, as the same drug trafficking group is suspected of being behind both.

A cocaine consignment worth about R286-million was intercepted on 9 July 2021 in Aeroton, an industrial area in the south of Johannesburg. It had been trucked there from Durban harbour, where it had arrived from Brazil – again corresponding to the route Mkhwanazi had identified.

Four suspects were initially arrested over this interception: Warrant Officer Marumo Magane of Gauteng’s Zonkizizwe police station; Warrant Officer Steve Phakula, a member of the National Investigation Unit; Samuel Mashaba, who was involved in traffic services in Gauteng; and businessman Tumelo Nku. Daily Maverick has reported that the case against the four was subsequently withdrawn in court, but the charges might be reinstated.

At the time of the suspects’ arrests, the police said it appeared they had basically hijacked the cocaine and tried to get away with it before other police officers arrived.

Magane acknowledged to the Madlanga Commission that he had piled bags of cocaine found concealed in a shipping container at the Aeroton scene onto the back of an open bakkie he was driving at the time.

He had not worn gloves and did not seal the cocaine in evidence bags. When it was put to Magane that the crime scene had been contaminated, he said: “I fully agree.”

He denied suggestions that he and those subsequently arrested with him had plotted to get the cocaine to an undisclosed location to avoid the scrutiny of police.

Hawks officer Colonel Francois Steyn told the Madlanga Commission that the Aeroton cocaine was taken to the Booysens police station. The commander there was worried about securing such a lucrative drug consignment, and it was subsequently moved to the police college in Pretoria.

Steyn said this was done because the local forensic science laboratory did not yet have space for it. On 19 July 2021, this situation changed and the cocaine consignment was taken to the laboratory. Steyn said that more than three years later, at the end of 2024, when he asked to see the cocaine, laboratory staff told him that “they couldn’t find the whole consignment”.

In early February 2025, a brigadier told him that “the consignment now only weighed 579.40kg and hence that 136.46kg was unaccounted for”. The street value of the missing cocaine amounts to R55-million.

Matlala, Msibi and Joe ‘Ferrari’

This law enforcement scandal as a whole is unprecedented. Suspended national police commissioner Fannie Masemola, widely viewed as aligned with Mkhwanazi, is now facing criminal charges related to a SAPS contract awarded two years ago to a company, Medicare 24 Tshwane District, run by Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala.

Aside from various criminal charges, Matlala has been accused of being a Big Five member. This means Masemola, while facing charges of contravening the Public Finance Management Act, is accused in a case alongside a suspected member of the drug cartel that allegedly extends into criminal justice authorities.

Lost cocaine timeline

22 June 2021: Cocaine shipped from Brazil worth between R200-million and R250-million is intercepted in Isipingo, just south of Durban, and moved to a Hawks building in Port Shepstone for storage.

9 July 2021: A container with truck parts that had arrived from Brazil is moved from Durban harbour to Aeroton in Johannesburg. Cocaine that was concealed inside is intercepted by a police officer and an associate, whose handling of it contaminates the crime scene. The cocaine, worth about R286-million, is taken to the Booysens police station.

12 July 2021: The Aeroton cocaine is taken to the police training college in Pretoria.

19 July 2021: The consignment is moved to the forensic science laboratory, presumably in Pretoria, where it should have been stored immediately after leaving the police station, but initially it had no space for it.

6–8 November 2021: The R200-million Isipingo consignment is stolen from a walk-in safe inside the Hawks building in Port Shepstone. It is the eighth burglary or attempted break-in at the facility in a decade.

3 December 2024: In the Aeroton case, a police officer requests to see the seized cocaine and is told not all of it can be found.

Start of February 2025: It emerges that 136.46kg of the 579.4kg Aeroton cocaine is missing from the laboratory. The lost amount has a street value of around R55-million.

– Information obtained from witness testimony at the Madlanga Commission.

The role of drug mules

Drug couriers – or mules – usually travel on planes with illicit drugs concealed in their luggage, if the consignment is large. They are often people desperate to make quick money. Trafficking cartels and gangs view them as disposable.

Some are lured to other countries with false promises of work and inadvertently become drug mules, which means they themselves are trafficked.

The mules often do not know the final destination of the drugs they are carrying, and the trafficking they undertake forms just one strand in much broader drug networks, which also ship masses of drugs between countries.

Lieutenant Colonel Nkoana Joseph Sebola of the Hawks, testifying before the Madlanga Commission, explained that although drug mules were often intercepted, the “kingpins” were not. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly DM168 newspaper, available countrywide for R35.

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