Ah, Chief Dwasaho! You and I both know there is no such thing as a criminal cartel called the Big Five operating across our sovereign Republic. Certainly not one involved in contract killings, extortion, kidnappings for ransom, tender skimming, and the quiet capture of the criminal justice system to prevent its favourite sons and Comrades from wearing orange overalls. Of course not. To suggest such a thing would be to undermine the Republic’s reputation for Law and Order.
Is the “Big Five” a criminal cartel or just a group of acquaintances?
Our favourite son of the soil, Lieutenant-General Shadrack Sibiya — suspended Deputy National Commissioner for Crime Detection — put the matter to bed in Parliament itself. Before the Ad Hoc Committee on Judicial Capture and Political Interference in the South African Police Service (SAPS), he said — with the calm of a man who has run out of patience for fairytales — “There is no Big Five.” And if there is no Big Five, then surely there can be no judicial capture, political interference, or shadowy network bending investigations and prosecutions to its will. Surely. The committee heard him. The country heard him. The transcript will outlive us all.
My leader, why are we still being marched into hearing rooms presided over by retired men with gavels and bedtime-story voices, lulling the nation into a gentle afternoon nap? Why must we sit through this performance, while Advocate Lee Segeels-Ncube, that brilliant sister of mine and daughter of the Republic who left her chambers in the spirit of service, is tasked with investigating something that the chief custodian of crime detection — Lieutenant-General Sibiya himself — has already told the nation does not exist?
If the man who heads investigations, intelligence, counter-intelligence operations and organised-crime disruption says there is no Big Five cartel, what exactly are we “probing”? The shadows of our own political anxieties? Or are we simply going through the motions of accountability so that it appears to be accountability?
True crime on CCTV
Comrade Leadership, in his testimony this week — suspended, yet reporting for duty; out on bail, yet still serving the Republic — Lieutenant-General Dumisani Khumalo, Divisional Head of Crime Intelligence, informed the commission that this so-called “Big Five” is merely a group of five acquaintances who sometimes find themselves entangled in criminal activity during their leisure hours. (My interpretation of his intelligence footwork.) Now, here is where the national logic begins to limp: If Lieutenant-General Sibiya is supposedly the chief enabler of police capture, then why would he dispatch Sergeant Fannie Nkosi, his operational right hand, to the murder accused Katiso “KT” Molefe’s residence, a house covered wall-to-wall in CCTV cameras?
Furthermore, it allows him (Nkosi) to arrive alone and depart carrying a parcel (perhaps with cold drink money). Then it ensures that the entire CCTV footage ends up in the hands of Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi and his Gauteng counter-intelligence team without resistance.
Do all alleged cartel kingpins in the Republic live in homes so thoroughly surveilled, so administratively compliant, and so eager to hand over their video evidence to the police?
Or is this Big Five beginning to resemble a political bedtime story, one told to make the public feel the villains are known, the police are working, and the rot has a name? Because if the villains are five men with a hobby, then the danger is not in the shadows. The danger is in the storytelling.
Khumalo productions™
My leader, stay with me as I peel back the velvet curtain on this fairytale masquerading as intelligence work and the alleged takedown of a cartel. At the commission, General Khumalo did not arrive with affidavits or bank trails. No, he came bearing cinema. He screened a short film starring Lieutenant-General Sibiya and Mr Stuart James Scharnick, a man who has 34 cases on record, of which 18 ended in convictions (yet he walks the streets), 11 were withdrawn, five resulted in acquittals, and the majority relate to carjackings and vehicle theft.
My leader, allow me to dim the lights and introduce Khumalo Productions™ — the newest studio in the Republic, specialising in surveillance cinema, high-stakes voyeurism, and, apparently, national security storytelling. On the morning of the search-and-seizure operation at Lieutenant-General Sibiya’s Centurion home, the cameras rolled. We watch the general walk out of his driveway and climb into a white bakkie, which we now know belongs to Mr Stuart James Scharnick.
From there, the surveillance film takes us across Gauteng, frame by frame, second by second — like a documentary for an audience that never requested screening access.
Prior knowledge and prior crimes
And then comes the grand reveal: the very same Mr Scharnick, seated directly behind Sibiya during his testimony before the parliamentary ad hoc committee investigating the capture of the justice system and police collusion with cartels. Not as a police-appointed close protector. But, in Scharnick’s own words, spoken openly on 702 and eNCA, “part of his support and advisory team”. Now, my leader, help me here.
According to General Khumalo’s testimony, Mr Scharnick has 34 cases on record, including 18 convictions, many of which relate to carjacking and vehicle theft. So explain it to me slowly, as if I were a child of the Republic still learning how to colour inside the lines: a man with 18 convictions, many for taking other people’s cars without permission, now accompanies the deputy national commissioner for crime detection — to a parliamentary committee investigating collusion between police and criminals. My leader, at this point, Khumalo Productions shifts from cinema to satire written by a higher power.
Are we truly meant to believe that a criminal cartel so powerful it allegedly infiltrated the SAPS is also so reckless that it uses its real cars, real number plates, and real government sign-in registers? What is this, a Grade R school play? Or a national security briefing for toddlers? Because the script begins to insult the nation’s intelligence.
Clearly, correctional services has outgrown its focus on rehabilitation. It now specialises in training strategic advisers for senior police leadership. My leader, this is skills development by other means. At this rate, the next SAPS promotion course will be written at Kgosi Mampuru II.
Cat & nine lives
We are told that Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala is the spine of the so-called Big Five. Yet when the arrest-day recording was played before the Madlanga Commission, he spoke freely — even warmly — about his ties to senior police officials. He dropped names and amounts of alleged bribes with the ease of a man ladling stew at a community soup kitchen. Do cartels of the 21st century incriminate themselves?
Brown tales and missing blood
As if Khumalo Productions™ and its surveillance blockbuster were not enough for the citizens’ evening entertainment, we were then treated to the Brown Mogotsi sequel, screened in the same venue and with the same straight face. According to news reports, Mr Brown Mogotsi — introduced to the nation as a “politically connected insider” and “police-adjacent fixer” — claimed he survived an assassination attempt in Vosloorus, Gauteng.
However, eyewitness accounts paint a different picture entirely: no pursuing vehicle, no masked hitmen, no speeding getaway bakkie, and no blood. Just Mr Brown’s own red Chevrolet sedan, struck by 11 bullets with indications that the gunfire may have originated from the target of assassination himself, Mr Brown.
Those in the know say, based on the trajectory of the bullets, that the driver would not have survived. My leader, what exactly are we watching here? John Wick: Kasi Edition? Shooter: Weekend Special? Are we to believe that the hunter became the hunted in a one-man performance on the R57?
Yet, even after this brush with death, Mr Brown declined to open a criminal case. No affidavit. Meanwhile, during this self-declared period of “fear for his life”, Lieutenant-General Mkhwanazi and his Gauteng counter-intelligence team quietly seized his digital devices.
So here we stand, my leader, expected to believe that a cartel so fearsome it can allegedly infiltrate SAPS, Parliament, and the very soul of the Republic, is at the same time so spectacularly careless that it films itself on CCTV, drives its own vehicles, uses its own SIM cards, keeps its real number plates, and signs in at government buildings using its Home Affairs names.
This is not organised crime, nor cartel behaviour, it is Grade R theatre with adult performers.
Till next week, my man. Send me to the Big Five for a chat. DM