Illustrative image: Tumelo Nku testifies before the Madlanga Commission. (Screen capture from video broadcast) | Kebby Maphatsoe. (Photo: Lihlumelo Toyana / Gallo Images / Foto24) Tumelo Nku, who has described himself as a businessman and a confidential source to police, told the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry on Monday, 29 June, that he was introduced to a drug trafficker known as “Eby” or “Iby” by a distant relative of his — Umkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans Association leader and former deputy defence minister Kebby Maphatsoe, who died in 2021.
Maphatsoe’s background was not focused on during the Madlanga Commission proceedings, but he was widely viewed as aligned with former president Jacob Zuma.
/file/attachments/orphans/pic18_421112.jpg "Tumelo Nku testified at the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry on Monday, 29 June 2026. (Photo: Facebook)")
Nku testified on Monday that a cocaine interception in Johannesburg in 2021 was carried out on behalf of Eby to put his trafficking competitors on the back foot.
While Nku initially believed Eby to be a legitimate businessman involved in a North West coal mining refinery, he later discovered he was a drug trafficker. Eby’s full identity was never disclosed during the Madlanga Commission proceedings, leaving the exact nature of his relationship with Maphatsoe unexplored.
Nku’s testimony, which began last Thursday, was scheduled to continue on Friday but was postponed after new developments required him to file a supplementary statement.
He resumed testifying on Monday, saying that he had “a long and hard chat” with his “spiritual leader”. As a result, he said, regardless of “the fear” that he felt, he needed to “lay it bare” at the commission.
Some aspects of his testimony on Monday differed from what he had said on Thursday.
‘Crackdown to frustrate rivals’
The proceedings involving Nku have focused on a R286-million cocaine consignment shipped from Brazil to Durban, hidden inside Scania truck parts. Nku was one of four individuals arrested in connection with the cargo, which was transported to Aeroton, south of Johannesburg, and controversially intercepted there on 9 July 2021.
MADLANGA COMMISSION | Businessman and alleged police informer Tumelo Nku says he was instructed to organise a drug bust to discredit a rival syndicate. pic.twitter.com/pAfnmGPuul
— SABC News (@SABCNews) June 29, 2026
Along with Nku, three others were arrested at the Aeroton scene: Gauteng traffic official Samuel Mashaba, Warrant Officer Marumo Magane of the Zonkizizwe police station in Gauteng, and Warrant Officer Steve Phakula, a National Investigation Unit member.
The court case against them was subsequently withdrawn, but the investigation into this saga is now continuing.
The two main theories
Based on what previously emerged at the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry, there were two main theories about what happened in the 9 July 2021 Aeroton saga. The one is that businessman Tumelo Nku and the three others he was initially arrested with were part of a legitimate cocaine interception; the other is that they were part of a plot to get the cocaine away from the Aeroton scene and move it to an undisclosed location before other police officers arrived. Nku’s latest testimony adds weight to the latter theory.
During Monday’s proceedings, Nku conceded that he had been in contact with Eby and that it was arranged that the cocaine be intercepted to prevent it from reaching its intended recipient — a rival trafficker.
“The mandate was: look, there are people that are our network’s competition. I would love you to organise a bust.”
Cash and cocaine
Nku testified that ahead of the bust, he had collaborated with Transnet employee Zamo Khuzwayo to obtain tracking details for the container carrying the cocaine. However, Khuzwayo failed to provide the precise information Nku required.
/file/attachments/orphans/WhatsAppImage2026-05-12at122459_380488.jpg "Cocaine worth around R286-million was discovered concealed in a consignment of truck parts in Aeroton, Johannesburg, in 2021. (Photo: Madlanga Commission of Inquiry)")
Last week, Nku testified that R60,000 in cash found on him at the time of the Aeroton bust was for his travelling expenses as he was trying to be discreet and not use his bank card.
On Monday, though, he changed his tune and said the money was for those who had helped him and those he was working with to intercept the cocaine (for Eby).
He said Eby would have paid him back and added that Maphatsoe facilitated part of that arrangement.
Mfazi and the poison suspicions
During last week’s proceedings, Nku said Maphatsoe had also connected him to the then deputy national police commissioner for crime detection, Sindile Mfazi.
The Sindile Mfazi case
Deputy national police commissioner for crime detection Sindile Mfazi died on 8 July 2021 — a day before the R286-million cocaine consignment was intercepted in Aeroton. At the time of his death, the government issued a statement saying it was from Covid-19. Daily Maverick has reported that accusations subsequently surfaced that Mfazi was poisoned after uncovering corruption involving fellow police officers.
Last week, Nku testified that months before the interception, he had tipped off Mfazi about potential contraband headed to South Africa, which turned out to be the cocaine that Eby wanted to have intercepted.
O’Sullivan has his say
Forensic investigator Paul O’Sullivan started testifying before the Madlanga Commission on Monday after Nku.
It was O’Sullivan’s first time testifying before the commission. (He has, however, testified before Parliament’s ad hoc hearing that was investigating the same allegations as the Madlanga Commission.)
/file/attachments/orphans/ED_613967_547393.jpg "Forensic investigator Paul O'Sullivan testifies at the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry on 29 June. (Photo: Frennie Shivambu / Gallo Images)")
O’Sullivan referred to the event that sparked the commission — a press conference that KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Nhanhla Mkhwanazi held nearly a year ago, during which he alleged a criminal cartel had infiltrated the state. O’Sullivan said the problem of criminals infiltrating the state was nothing new and that Mkhwanazi had known this long before the press conference.
The Hawks cop and Radovan Krejcir
O’Sullivan referred to various individuals, including Czech criminal Radovan Krejcir, who was based in Gauteng and is now in prison, and organised crime suspect and rumoured intelligence agent Cyril Beeka, who was murdered in the Western Cape in 2011.
This is where O’Sullivan’s testimony looped back to recent Madlanga Commission proceedings.
On Monday, he told the commission that a previous witness, Hawks officer Francois Steyn, had taken out a loan in 2010 from a company linked to Krejcir.
The loan amounted to R408,000 and was allegedly to repay bond instalments.
In 2013, the Mail & Guardian reported that Steyn told a journalist that “the money was part of a ‘financial commitment’ he had made to the late security consultant and underworld figure” Beeka.
O’Sullivan said he was taken aback when Steyn — whom he criticised as being perfectly comfortable accepting a loan from an underworld suspect — was called to testify before the Madlanga Commission last month
Steyn heads the Gauteng Hawks’ West Rand Serious Organised Crime Unit and is also the Hawks narcotics case coordinator in that province.
Steyn testified about the Aeroton cocaine saga, saying that R55-million of the R286-million consignment went missing from a state forensic laboratory. DM
What’s next?
The Madlanga Commission of Inquiry will continue hearing witness testimony. It aims to present a final report on the evidence that emerges through its proceedings to President Cyril Ramaphosa by 31 August. DM