Former top cop Khomotso Phahlane and high-ranking officers in the Crime Intelligence (CI) division were arrested in a series of raids – the fruit of an Investigating Directorate (ID) probe into a R54-million procurement scandal which has spanned years.  

Sources close to the investigation told News24 that swoops played out in Durban, Johannesburg, Pretoria, and Gqeberha on Monday night, with the operation stretching into the early hours of the morning.

According to impeccable sources, former national commissioner Phahlane was taken into custody at his home in the plush Sable Hills Estate on Tuesday morning.

Acting head of the Crime Intelligence secret fund, Major-General Obed Nemutanzhela, was arrested at the OR Tambo International Airport while attempting to board a flight to Cape Town.

Colonel Godfrey Mahwayi was arrested in Pretoria.

The last to be placed in handcuffs was Major General Agnes Makhele, head of CI in the Free State, who was arrested in Bloemfontein on Tuesday. 

The investigation centres on a procurement scandal from the State capture era, in which the cop spook division manipulated procurement processes for a R54-million splurge on social media monitoring tools and telephone encryption software. 

The R33-million purchase of a social media monitoring tool called RIPJAR began in December 2016, using emergency procurement prescripts, with the tool "urgently" needed to address "Fees Must Fall" university protests.

These prescripts are usually used when there is an urgent need – and in this matter – the urgency is undercut by the fact that the Fees Must Fall movement and the protest action around it began a year and a half earlier.

The note-so perfect source

To procure the software, Crime Intelligence obtained two quotations, one from a company named I-View owned by businessman Inbanathan Kistiah, and the second from a firm called Perfect Source Solutions. Perfect Source was a human resources and recruitment company. The sole director of Perfect Source was Gevani Naidoo. Her husband, Avendra, provided the other quote Kistiah needed. 

The procurement was driven by Mahwayi, who in his role had no authority for procurement. He sourced the quotations and, within two days, R33-million landed in Kistiah’s bank account, with no contract or agreement in place.

According to investigators from the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID), who first pursued the probe after they were alerted by a whistleblower, could find no evidence that the RIPJAR software was ever delivered.

Several months later, Crime Intelligence looked to I-View and Kistiah to provide phone encryption software called Deadelus for R21-million. Similarly, Mahwayi obtained two quotes from the same two companies, and I-View secured their second windfall.

Both deals bear the hallmarks of cover quoting, a collusive practice where the prices of counter-quotations are inflated to ensure that the deal goes to a predetermined recipient.

Sources within IPID, who could not be named, alleged that the Deadelus system was purchased in order to shield Phahlane from their investigators, who were hot on his heels over a mammoth blue light tender. Phahlane and other top cops face criminal charges for this scheme and are currently before court.

Criminal intelligence 

Kistiah and Avendra Naidoo were arrested in Durban and Gqeberha respectively. The former was said to have been boarding a plane, the destination of which could not be independently confirmed.  

Kistiah is central in a string of IPID investigations into high-level police corruption which have since been ceded to the ID.

Another dubious deal pushed Kistiah’s way was the purchase of a sophisticated spying device known as a grabber, which can intercept calls and infiltrate cellular phones. I-View was to provide such a device at R45-million, several times more than what it is worth, just days before the African National Congress’s 2017 Nasrec elective conference.

The deal was abandoned after pressure from IPID sleuths, who insisted that the splurge was in fact a money laundering scheme which would see cash from the Crime Intelligence slush fund used to bribe voting delegates at the conference.

This scandal haunted former top cop Khehla Sitole for the entirety of his tenure and contributed to his axing earlier this year. This over his refusal to declassify evidence needed by IPID to conclude their investigations.

Sitole and two other top generals were found to have intentionally withheld information of a crime, in breach of their duties as police officers.

The six are expected to appear in the Pretoria Commercial Crimes Court on Wednesday.