Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber has welcomed the arrest of two former Department of Home Affairs officials and four members of the public in connection with an alleged fraud and corruption scheme involving the irregular registration of births at the Malamulele Home Affairs office in Limpopo. The arrests, announced on Tuesday, are the latest in the department’s ongoing campaign against corruption within the country’s identity and immigration system. According to the department, the suspects were arrested over the weekend by…

Major-General Lesetja Senona has resigned as the KwaZulu-Natal head of the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks), bringing an abrupt end to his tenure while he remained embroiled in allegations before the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Criminality, Political Interference and Corruption in the Criminal Justice System, commonly known as the Madlanga Commission. His resignation took effect immediately on Friday. Senona is a veteran police officer who joined the South African Police Service (SAPS) in 1985 and rose through the…

A councillor from Limpopo has been arrested after allegedly attempting to bribe a Special Investigating Unit (SIU) investigator with R70,000 to derail an ongoing corruption investigation linked to the Mahikeng Local Municipality in North West. Netshivhumbe Gumani, 44, a serving councillor at Thulamela Local Municipality, was arrested on Thursday in a joint operation involving the SIU, the Hawks and the South African Police Service (SAPS). He is facing a charge of corruption. According to the SIU, Gumani allegedly approached investigators…

South African law enforcement agencies have dealt another significant blow to international drug trafficking syndicates after seizing 30 bricks of cocaine aboard a vessel at the Port of Durban, just days after intercepting an estimated 90kg of cocaine concealed in trucks arriving from Brazil. The latest seizure, announced jointly by the South African Revenue Service (SARS) and the Hawks on Tuesday night, is the second major cocaine bust at the country’s busiest port in less than a week and underscores…

The Border Management Authority (BMA) confirmed on Thursday that border guards, working alongside law enforcement agencies, seized a large quantity of methaqualone — commonly known as “ABBA” and used in the manufacturing of mandrax — during a stop-and-search operation conducted on 27 May. According to the BMA, the truck was travelling from Malawi into South Africa when it was flagged for inspection at the busy border post, one of the region’s key commercial and migration corridors linking South Africa with…

ActionSA has called for a criminal investigation into the controversial repair project at Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital, following a scathing report by the Public Protector that uncovered alleged maladministration, financial irregularities and project management failures linked to the hospital’s reconstruction after the devastating 2021 fire. On Monday, ActionSA Member of Parliament Dr Kgosi Letlape confirmed the party would formally request the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, commonly known as the Hawks, to launch an inquiry into the conduct of…

A sweeping anti-corruption operation by the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (DPCI) has resulted in the arrest of 13 law enforcement officers in Gauteng, exposing what authorities say is a troubling pattern of criminal conduct within the very ranks tasked with upholding the law. Nine officers are expected to appear before the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court on Friday, facing charges of corruption, extortion and trespassing following their arrest in the early hours of Thursday. The arrests were triggered by a complaint…

The Hawks have widened the raid in Newcastle by including the home of a roads contractor who reportedly won several tenders to build local roads on behalf of the northern KwaZulu-Natal municipality. This morning, the elite crime-fighting unit pounced at the plush home of Roshan Deochand, the owner of Sizela Transport, the company that won the tenders. According to sources, the home is also used as an office for the company, hence the Hawks pounced on it and took several…

The Hawks have conducted a sweeping raid at the troubled Newcastle Local Municipality in northern KwaZulu-Natal and confiscated electronic gadgets of senior officials and a large volume of documents. The raid took over 11 hours, and at the time this report was compiled, the Hawks were still on site in the offices in central Newcastle, mining data from the computer servers of the municipality. The IFP-run municipality has been in the spotlight after it was alleged that some politicians and…

Two women accused of orchestrating an alleged fraud and corruption scheme involving more than R800,000 at the Small Enterprise Development and Finance Agency (Sedfa) briefly appeared in the Tzaneen Magistrate’s Court on Thursday, where they were granted bail of R20,000 each. Phaladi Ramadimetje Maggie, a financial advisor at Sedfa, and her co-accused Audrey Gavasa Ndlovu, a director at Nubian Notes, face charges of corruption, fraud, theft and money laundering. Their case was postponed to May to allow for further investigation…