In the serious corruption category, Lebeya referenced Kodwa and Mackay’s arrest and subsequent court appearances, the 46-year jail terms handed to two former police officers as well as a 10-year sentence handed to a Pakistani national.
Notable mentions made in serious commercial crime investigations included the arrests and court appearances of former KPMG bursary specialist Fidelis Moema and his co-accused, the arrest of a former CFO at Star Schools and her family as well as the 291-year sentence handed to a former MMG employee for fraud.
Additionally, a transnational organised crime group was slapped with an 11,052-year combined prison term for “391 counts of money laundering, fraud, forgery, uttering, assisting another to benefit from unlawful activities, acquisition and possession or use of proceeds of unlawful activities” among other offences.
“[Additionally] 10 SA Revenue Service (Sars) employees [stationed at Ficksburg Bridge, Maseru Bridge and Van Rooyen’s Hek Bridge] who had allegedly facilitated 333 transactions amounting to R653,500,455 … appeared in Lady Brand magistrate’s court on June 10 and July 16 on charges of fraud, money laundering and contravention of the Tax Administration Act [among others],” he said.
The matter is set down for trial in November.
Other successes Lebeya cited included IEC commissioner Dr Norma Masuku’s arrest and court appearance for R1.2m fraud, the additional arrests of North West health officials in the case against former head of department Dr Andrew Lekalakala and his fraud co-accused and the sentencing of two people to a combined 320 years behind bars for damaging essential infrastructure after they were found with cellphone tower batteries.
He ended the briefing by announcing key changes to the Hawks’ top management.
“The component head of serious organised crime, Maj-Gen [Alfred] Khana, will be retiring from office on August 31. He will be succeeded by Brig [Hennie] Flynn … with effect from September 1, 2024.
“On September 30, the divisional commissioner Lt- Gen [Senaba] Mosipi will retire from office and the successor who is to be announced on September 1 will be appointed with effect from October 1,” he said.
Khana was accused of bungling the Steinhoff case and sabotaging the investigation into Prasa corruption exposed in Jacques Pauw’s book Our Poisoned Land.
TimesLIVE
Khanyisile Ngcobo
www.timeslive.co.za
