{"id":29607,"date":"2025-07-08T07:06:33","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T11:06:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=29607"},"modified":"2025-07-08T07:06:33","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T11:06:33","slug":"south-africas-police-minister-accused-of-links-to-criminal-gangs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2025\/07\/08\/south-africas-police-minister-accused-of-links-to-criminal-gangs\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa&#8217;s police minister accused of links to criminal gangs"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"ssrcss-suhx0k-RichTextComponentWrapper ep2nwvo0\" data-component=\"text-block\">\n<div class=\"ssrcss-1o5p6v2-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi1\">\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Police Minister Senzo Mchunu has been accused of having ties to<\/b><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">\u00a0<\/b><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">criminal gangs and of meddling in police investigations into politically motivated murders.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">These explosive allegations were made by KwaZulu-Natal police boss Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi at a press briefing on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He said Mr Mchunu was receiving financial support from an allegedly corrupt businessman to fund his &#8220;political endeavours&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Mr Mchunu has since denied what he says are &#8220;wild allegations&#8221; while President Cyril Ramaphosa said they were of &#8220;grave national security concern&#8221; and &#8220;receiving the highest priority attention&#8221;.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ssrcss-suhx0k-RichTextComponentWrapper ep2nwvo0\" data-component=\"text-block\">\n<div class=\"ssrcss-1o5p6v2-RichTextContainer e5tfeyi1\">\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Gen Mkhwanazi detailed a sequence of events he claims led to the &#8220;orchestrated&#8221; disbandment of a task force set up in 2018 to investigate the killing of politicians, mainly in KwaZulu-Natal.<\/p>\n<div class=\"ssrcss-h5qd1q-ListContainer e5tfeyi0\">\n<ul role=\"list\">\n<li>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><a class=\"ssrcss-f6h2dj-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c78nj7np6d8o\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">S Africa&#8217;s police intelligence chief arrested over fraud allegations<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><a class=\"ssrcss-f6h2dj-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c1mg2xg339jo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Caught in the crossfire &#8211; the victims of Cape Town&#8217;s gang warfare<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Gen Mkhwanazi said the team&#8217;s investigations had uncovered links to high-profile individuals \u2014 including politicians, police officials, and businesspeople tied to a drug cartel syndicate &#8211; and this is why the team was disbanded.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">When he dissolved the unit earlier this year, Mchunu said it was not adding value in the province, despite many cases remaining unsolved.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">According to Gen Mkhwanazi, a total of 121 case files were allegedly removed from the unit on the minister&#8217;s instruction and without the authorisation of his boss, the national police commissioner General Fannie Masemola.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;These case dockets have, since March, been sitting at the head office ever since without any investigation work done on them. Five of these dockets already had instructions to [effect] arrests.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The provincial police chief also alleged Mr Mchunu had ties to a controversial businessman who was &#8220;financially supporting&#8221; the minister&#8217;s political career.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Vusimuzi Matlala had a lucrative contract with the police before it was abruptly cancelled when he was arrested for attempted murder in May. Gen Mkhwanazi shared copies of text messages and a payment allegedly made by Mr Matlala to prove this.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Gen Masemola, on his part, said he would address these allegations later in the week when he announces the appointment of the temporary crime intelligence boss.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Criminal intelligence chief Lt-Gen Dumisani Khumalo was arrested over fraud and corruption allegations last month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Gen Khumalo and the other six had been linked to an ongoing investigation into alleged abuse of intelligence funds and potentially unlawful appointments within the South African Police Service (SAPS).<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cx205ykppdjo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\">Police Minister Senzo Mchunu has been accused of having ties to\u00a0criminal gangs and of meddling in police investigations into politically motivated murders. These explosive allegations were made by KwaZulu-Natal police boss Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi at a <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2025\/07\/08\/south-africas-police-minister-accused-of-links-to-criminal-gangs\/\" title=\"South Africa&#8217;s police minister accused of links to criminal gangs\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[109,2,6],"tags":[3214,7892,11465,977,11417],"class_list":{"0":"post-29607","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headline","8":"category-news","9":"category-world","10":"tag-gangs","11":"tag-kwazulu-natal","12":"tag-senzo-mchunu","13":"tag-south-africa","14":"tag-south-african-police-service","15":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29607"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29609,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29607\/revisions\/29609"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}