Police dockets found in Cape Town gun crackdown hint at more cop collusion

When police officers followed up on a tip-off about firearms in Cape Town, they found more than they expected – nine case dockets that should have been in their possession.

A date stamp from a magistrates’ court was also discovered.

This happened on the evening of Tuesday, 26 May 2026, at a resident’s home in the Cape Town suburb of Grassy Park, and suggests possible collusion between law enforcers and crime suspects.

Similar suspicions of gangsters infiltrating the South African Police Service (SAPS) in the Western Cape have surfaced before.

The suspicions align with South Africa’s unprecedented national law enforcement scandal, hinged on accusations that a drug cartel has infiltrated the country’s criminal justice system and politics.

Multiple shootings

In the run-up to the discovery of dockets and the magistrates’ court stamp on Tuesday, various shootings erupted in Cape Town

Together, these events underline the grip that organised crime, especially gangsterism, has on the Western Cape.

According to recently released SAPS statistics, of the 242 gang murders recorded in the country between January and March this year, the outright majority – 225 – happened in the Western Cape.

The province is among those the SA National Defence Force deployed teams to earlier this year to try to quell violence, in an operation set to run until April 2027.

However, gang violence has persisted in Cape Town and is now set to be the focus of an imminent parliamentary inquiry that will include public hearings.

In some of the recent incidents still under police investigation, three men, aged between 20 and 24, were shot in Makhaza in Khayelitsha on Sunday, 24 May.

Early the next morning, three men were also shot at a shebeen in Endlovini, also in Khayelitsha. It was not clear if the two incidents were related.

Hitmen strike in café

Later on Monday, violence shifted about 44km away to another suburb – a man was targeted in what appeared to be an unrelated hit in Table View.

CCTV footage shows a gunman walking up to the man seated at a café table.

The gunman begins shooting him, first aiming at his head, and a second gunman arrives and also shoots at the man.

Two women seated nearby scramble to get away.

Meanwhile, the two men leave, but return to fire more shots at the man, who by now is no longer sitting upright.

The gunmen grab the man’s belongings before they flee.

Daily Maverick understands that suspicions about the motive behind this killing include that the man may have been targeted in skirmishes related to the drug trade; however, this has not been confirmed.

Dockets and fake guns

The incident in which dockets were found happened the following evening in Grassy Park.

Responding on Wednesday to a Daily Maverick query, Western Cape police spokesperson Captain Frederick van Wyk said that officers were following up on information about a suspect with firearms.

This led them to a home in Grassy Park – parts of this suburb are gang strongholds.

“They searched the suspect’s house, leading to the discovery of two imitation firearms, nine SAPS dockets, 73 rounds of ammunition and a magistrates’ court date stamp,” Van Wyk said.

A 37-year-old man was arrested for the possession of imitation firearms and ammunition.

“The circumstances surrounding the dockets in his possession are under investigation,” Van Wyk said.

It was therefore not clear whether police or court officials were involved in providing the dockets and the magistrates’ court stamp to a civilian, and what he was doing with these items.

Daily Maverick has reported that in 2022, a Western Cape high court judgment warned that evidence in a gang case suggested that the 28s gang had infiltrated police in the province.

SAPS IN CRISIS

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Despite nearly four years having since lapsed, the veracity of the evidence and whether any police officers have been held to account remains unclear.

Parliamentary focus

On Wednesday, issues relating to gang violence, especially in and around Cape Town, were discussed in Parliament when the police committee, headed by the DA’s Ian Cameron, detailed its plans for an inquiry expected to proceed soon.

According to its draft terms of reference, it aimed to start this month and conclude by the end of April next year.

This timeframe may be amended or extended.

The draft terms of reference said the inquiry was confined to gang-related violent crime and would not be a general hearing into the overall performance of the SAPS.

“Gang-related violence forms part of broader organised criminal economies involving drug trafficking, extortion, illegal firearms trafficking, money laundering, protection rackets, and transport-related violence,” it said.

“The persistence of gang violence is rooted in historical and socioeconomic conditions,” dating back to apartheid.

‘Under siege’

The terms of the draft reference said that “communities across the Cape Flats” were “under siege from rampant gang-related violence”.

It said the inquiry would include analysing the impact that violent crime had on Cape Town residents.

The inquiry would also “review and evaluate the effectiveness of government responses, including policing, crime intelligence, investigation and prosecution”.

Public hearings would form part of the inquiry.

In November 2025, the National Assembly mandated the committee to conduct the inquiry, with a reporting deadline of 30 June 2026. However, an extension was requested.

Aside from the complexities relating to gang violence, the extension request was made because Parliament’s ad hoc committee had been holding hearings to investigate accusations that a drug cartel had infiltrated the country’s criminal justice system.

This is the crux of the national scandal that has resulted in several senior police officers being suspended, arrested and criminally charged.

The ad hoc hearings have since wrapped up, which means the MPs involved are now free to take part in the gang violence inquiry. DM