SAPS Crime Intelligence: frozen in the political winter of Mangaung

The spy wars in the police’s embattled crime intelligence division are at the heart of a relentless struggle for control between political factions, each fighting to get its man into the much sought-after seat of spy master. Not unlike the Apartheid regime’s security branch, crime intelligence is a notoriously powerful instrument for government, as the eyes and ears on not only the criminal activities of mob bosses, but also the politicians and businessmen with whom they are connected. As this silent battle in the murky world of spies plays itself out in the final days on the road to Mangaung, combating crime has taken a back seat, writes DE WET POTGIETER.

The police’s crime intelligence division – in theory the backbone of crime prevention and the effective combating of crime in South Africa – appear to have become so politicised with factional in-fighting that this expert unit have suffered from paralysis since the struggle for the top post as spy master intensified last year.

“The spy bosses at crime intelligence headquarters in Pretoria are sitting on their hands, too afraid to make a wrong move in the run-up to Mangaung, in case it jeopardises their future in the police.”

That’s how well-placed intelligence sources describe the sensitive circumstances surrounding them.

In the latest saga of dirty tricks in Spy versus Spy – which was a closely guarded secret until now – Daily Maverick can reveal that the Toshiba laptop of acting head of crime intelligence, Major-General Chris Ngcobo, mysteriously disappeared from the boot of his car, together with sensitive intelligence documents.

In a handwritten sworn statement, Ngcobo’s official driver, Ernest Masemola, said he stopped on 24 September with a Ford Focus in Esselen Street, in Sunnyside in Pretoria, to pick up photographs from Photo Plus. From there he travelled to the Brooklyn Mall and then drove Ngcobo to Doornpoort in the north of Pretoria.

“I parked the car outside [with] my commanding officer, Major-General Chris Ngcobo, [and we] both got out of the car. We walked together to the boot of the car and when I opened it we discovered his laptop was missing.”

Police spokesperson Brigadier Phuti Setati declined to comment on the incident.

Ngcobo, a former head of Protection and Security Services in the Free State and a former head of VIP Protection, was appointed as acting top police spy by national police commissioner Riah Phiyega “to bring stability” to crime intelligence after the position was vacated following the suspension of controversial former intelligence chief Lieutenant-General Richard Mdluli.

Both local and foreign intelligence sources voiced their concern to Daily Maverick that soon after his appointment, Ngcobo suspended – until after the Mangaung conference is done and dusted – all official authorisation of telephone tapping for agents working on deep cover operations within organised crime syndicates. This ban on surveillance was recently eased somewhat after an investigating advocate from the prosecuting authority intervened.

According to senior colleagues, Ngcobo is sitting with an explosive docket regarding one of his predecessors as acting head of intelligence – and the main rival of Mdluli to this top post, Major-General Mark Hankel – without taking any action. It has been reliably learned that the dossier recommends that action be taken against Hankel regarding the following two issues:

• The leakage of information;
• The illegal interception of telephone conversations of other government departments as well as the use of the Secret Services Account (SSA).

Hankel, the former head of crime intelligence’s operational intelligence analysis section, is a very powerful officer in the division and had always been seen as the main rival of Mdluli for the top post. He was instrumental in drafting the controversial secret report presented to the inspector general of intelligence, Faith Radebe, earlier this year, outlining the allegations of fraud and misappropriation of the slush fund against Mdluli.

The controversy surrounding crime intelligence culminated last year when, with the stroke of a pen, almost the entire top management of the police’s crime intelligence were instructed to vacate their offices and move to other sections in the SAPS. Reacting soon after the purge, police spokesperson Major-General Nonkululeko Mbatha said that “certain interventions have been done directed at the optimal functioning of the environment.” All this was done in the interest of the service, she added.

In total, 11 members of management received their walking letters, and one of them had been suspended while under investigation by the Hawks. They were redeployed to other sections in the SAPS.

“This was not a spur of the moment decision,” a senior police source close to crime intelligence explained soon after the purge. “The investigation into the activities there had been ongoing for quite some time.”

This drastic move by then-acting national police commissioner, Major-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, was a sequel to the crackdown by the Hawks on the controversial division. Mdluli was the first casualty of the purge after the Hawks chief, General Anwar Dramat, received instructions to clean out crime intelligence, starting at the top. Top Cape Town cop, Colonel Piet Viljoen, was brought up to Gauteng as part of the behind-the-scenes investigation.

For some time now, it has been possible to sense from within the ranks of crime intelligence an eerie atmosphere of distrust since Mdluli’s arrest, especially as the police spies started to panic and closed ranks. (Mdluli was recently cleared of the murder charge, but remains on suspension.)

The next to go was the controversial former Gauteng boss, Joey Mabasa, who fell from grace owing to his wife’s links with the Czech fugitive Radovan Krejcir’s wife. Mabasa took a severance package last year and left the police quietly.

In another strange move by the crime intelligence top brass, the police refused to give reasons for the massive destruction of extremely valuable and sensitive documents and surveillance material regarding the activities of international crime syndicates and local drug lords soon after Mdluli was arrested for murder last year.

It is believed that the purge of the police’s spy unit in November last year was partly the result of the bitter internal political struggle which lead to the panicky destruction of vital evidence that pointed to links by top ANC politicians and family members with crime syndicate leaders.

According to intelligence sources, Operations Dante and Snowman were two top secret intelligence-driven investigations into the links of South African crime bosses with, in particular, the dangerous crime syndicates operating from the Balkan countries – with the main focus on Serbia and Montenegro.

“There were at least 30 targets whose telephones were legally tapped in these operations,” sources closely connected to these deep cover operations said.

Some of the key “targets” the agents were eavesdropping on were, among others, the slain gangland boss, Cyril Beeka, the murdered king of sleaze, Lolly Jackson, the Czech fugitive, Radovan Krejcir, one of his Serbian business associates, Veselin “Vesco” Laganin, and convicted drug dealer, Glen Agliotti.

Asked for comment, the then Hawks spokesperson, Colonel Macintosh Polela, said: “We don’t give out information on crime intelligence operations. As such, I’m unable to respond to any of your questions.”

Since Phiyega took over as police commissioner earlier this year, Mkhwanazi was redeployed. Before she took over the reins, he had been rumoured to be the frontrunner for the intelligence post. Mkhwanazi took the decisive decision last year to suspend Mdluli from his post as intelligence boss pending the outcome of the murder trial.

According to well-placed sources, within days of Mdluli’s arrest, Hankel withdrew particular crime intelligence material from the vaults at crime intelligence head office in Pretoria, and the frantic shredding started around the clock, destroying vital evidence regarding international organised crime syndicates. Hankel, who is regarded as “very knowledgeable”, with a lot of sensitive information, including the criminal activities of influential people, declined to comment.

Showing his hand in this relentless battle for the heart of crime intelligence, soon after his arrest, Mdluli handed the so-called Ground Coverage Report to President Jacob Zuma, in which it is alleged that certain high-profile ANC leaders, including Human Settlement Minister Tokyo Sexwale, KwaZulu-Natal Premier Zweli Mkhize and Bheki Cele, plotted to overthrow Zuma. These claims of a conspiracy against Zuma were vehemently denied.

The Hawks, which relied heavily on information from the police’s crime intelligence division for its own investigations, severed all links, with crime intelligence due to the breach in trust; the working relationship soured when the super cops discovered that the phones of Hawks investigators were being illegally tapped by crime intelligence.

Only a few weeks away, the ANC’s Mangaung conference will define the winners and losers, at least for the time being. One question remains difficult to answer, however: will the police crime intelligence unit ever become what it is supposed to be – an elite department whose only true masters are the people of South Africa? DM

Source: Daily Maverick

Intelligence officer fired under cloud of Krejcir links

Senior crime intelligence officer Major General Joey Mabasa, who has been linked to Czech fugitive from justice Radovan Krejcir, has been sacked from the police service with immediate effect.

Hawks spokesperson McIntosh Polela said that Mabasa was discharged under section 35 of the South African Police Service Act "because his services were no longer needed and because it is in the interest of the service to discontinue his job".

According to a police source, Mabasa's contract was terminated last Friday. The decision to sack him was made, the source said, after "publicity around Mabasa made it difficult for him to stay with the service". The source said that Mabasa would receive "some sort of a payout".

Mabasa was transferred last year from his position as head of crime intelligence for Gauteng back to head office in Pretoria, after questions were raised about his relationship with Krejcir. Krejcir's wife, Katarina, and Mabasa's wife, Dorcas, started a company together in 2009 and became co-directors of that company, called Radlochron. At the time, Mabasa claimed that he and his wife were separated, a claim not supported by circumstantial evidence. Krejcir said that the link with Mabasa's wife was innocent and the company never traded.

Krejcir also said that he was introduced to Mabasa through his attorney, Ian Small-Smith, when he (Krejcir) feared being kidnapped. When the Mail & Guardian exposed the business relationship between the wives of Krejcir and Mabasa last year, Krejcir's former business associate, Juan Meyer, accused Mabasa of holding meetings with the Czech at the Michelangelo Hotel in Sandton. The two men denied this. Meyer has alleged that he was present on two occasions when Mabasa was given bags that Meyer believed contained cash.

Krejcir also denied this last year and claimed that Meyer had not attended any meetings with Mabasa. After Mabasa's transfer to head office, more allegations surfaced, including allegations that crime intelligence was engaged in extensive phone tapping of Hawks members and others involved in the Krejcir investigation.

Questions were raised about who motivated this surveillance, who approved it and whether the information was passed on to Krejcir. It is alleged that in at least one case intercepted conversations found their way to targets of the Hawks' investigation, which includes not only Krejcir but a number of his associates. Mabasa's phone was off when the M&G tried to contact him.

Meanwhile, the M&G understands that crime intelligence boss Lieutenant General Richard Mdluli, who was suspended earlier this year after he was arrested for murder, has refused an offer similar to Mabasa's to leave.

Mdluli was allegedly given a week to explain to national police commissioner General Bheki Cele why he should not be fired.

Source: Mail & Guardian

Krejcir scoffs at 'Mafia boss' claims

Johannesburg - Fugitive Czech billionaire Radovan Krejcir scoffs at suggestions that he is “some big Mafia boss from the Eastern Bloc” and says he has “absolutely nothing to hide”. Breaking his silence ahead of a renewed bid by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to have him extradited to the Czech Republic, Krejcir told Rapport he was the victim of “fabricated stories” and a “dirty plan” concocted to “get me deported from this country, either legally or illegally”. He says that his record in the Czech Republic is “clean” and claims the country's Constitutional Court has overturned a prison sentenced imposed on him. Despite this, the Czech authorities still want him extradited.

Krejcir has accused “elements” in the NPA and police, Czech intelligence operatives and prominent whistleblower Paul O'Sullivan – who describes Krejcir as the head of an “evil trans-national crime syndicate” that “wants to control the underworld in South Africa” - of conspiring against him. He claims O'Sullivan is in the pay of the Czech intelligence services and “stands to benefit by $500 000” if Krejcir is successfully extradited. O'Sullivan on Saturday laughed off the claim.

Krejcir - who was sentenced in absentia in the Czech Republic to six-and-a-half years imprisonment for tax fraud and reportedly investigated on charges of conspiracy to murder, counterfeiting, extortion and abduction – is a flamboyant man, given to ostentatious displays of wealth and power. In recent weeks his links to a coterie of controversial South African businessmen and underworld figures has been in the spotlight.

He arrived in South Africa in 2007 and was arrested at OR Tambo international airport on an Interpol “red notice” while travelling with a Seychelles passport, issued in the name Egbert Jules Savy. An application for his extradition was unsuccessful. Krejcir, who has applied for political asylum, has since ensconced himself in South Africa. He holds court at the Harbour Fish Market restaurant in the Bedford Centre, usually with one of his two Porsches, a Lamborghini Murcielago, a Ferrari Spider or a Mercedes parked in a private, roped-off bay near the front door. He has free reign of the restaurant.

One corner of the outside patio is shielded with bullet-proof glass, installed at Krejcir's expense after he discovered that a “Russian hit team” had been sent to South Africa by the Czech government to snatch or kill him and planned to position snipers in a block of flats across the road from the restaurant. Until his murder in May this year, Teazers strip club boss Lolly Jackson – along with George Smith, the man who would be accused of his murder, were Krejcir's frequent companions at the restaurant.

Krejcir's R20m Bedfordview home – which he shares with his wife Katerina Krejcirova, a 9-month-old baby boy and their teenage son, is a four storey mansion replete with a steel and glass lift, aquarium and an infinity pool looking out over the Johannesburg skyline. They also own a holiday home on the Vaal Dam. Once a week he rents Kyalami racetrack so that he and his son can race superbikes and sportscars. “Lolly and I were very good friends because of my sickness with cars. I love cars. He loved cars. Every week we rented Kyalami for two hours to have some adrenaline because I cannot travel, I cannot do fuck-all. I really love these toys.”

Krejcir says he has no desire to return to the Czech Republic. “I believe this is the best country in the world,” he said this week. “I don't want to go to the Czech Republic because I'll never have the chance of a fair trial and they will kill me.” There, 5km from the capital, Prague, Krejcir once lived on a 2 000m² estate in a villa estimated to have cost R151m. It boasted a squash court, basketball court, indoor and outdoor swimming pools and a giant aquarium containing reef sharks, a 1.7m moray eel and “other dangerous fishes”. There was also an enclosure on the property for a pet tiger.

Czech police say the house contained a secret strongroom packed with weapons, jewellery, share certificates and classified police documents. Krejcir had amassed a fortune by the time he was 30, making most it during the wave of state industry privatisation that followed the 1989 “Velvet Revolution” which saw the overthrow of the authoritarian communist government.

In June 2005, balaclava-clad security police and state prosecutors swooped on Krejcir's home. Press reports suggest that Krejcir escaped through a bathroom window. According to press reports, he was supposedly spotted three days later in neighbouring Slovakia at a petrol station filling up the tank of a Lamborghini. He says he was allowed to leave by a state prosecutor. “In my bathroom there was no window. I don't know how you could escape from 20 guys with machine guns and masks on their faces.”

In the wake of his disappearance, police said they had found billions of crowns in fake currency at a factory owned by Krejcir. Mixed into the boxes of cash was 8 million Czech crowns (about R3m) of genuine currency. Krejcir says the boxes of cash were an elaborate gift for a close friend who was turning 40. “We as rich people after the revolution gave some presents like this. The top and bottom of the boxes was real money and the middle was fake and inside it would say: 'Happy birthday'” “So you give a present that looks like it is billions of crowns but in reality it is only 8 million crowns.”

Krejcir next turned up in the Seychelles where he gave financial support to the ruling elite. As a result, he says, “they offered me and my family a new identity”. “I submitted an application and received from Home Affairs passports under the name Egbert Jules Savy for me, Sandra Savy for my wife and Greg Savy for my son. I came to South Africa believing my passport was a genuine one.” The Seychelles authorities later claimed the passports were fake. But Krejcir says “it is not important if the passport is false or not because if you are successful in getting political asylum, it doesn't matter how you ended up in the this country because you tried to save your life.”

Krejcir argues that he is a Seychelles citizen and that his Czech citizenship lapsed when he accepted a new passport. In the Seychelles, to stave off boredom, he wrote a book titled: Radovan Krejcir - Revealed. “It was so boring there, like being a prisoner in paradise,” he said. “At least I could go diving and fishing...” In the book he claimed he had advanced about R20m for the 2002 election campaign of Czech Social Democratic candidate Stanislav Gross and in exchange had received a promissory note which stipulated that if the election bid was successful, Krejcir would be given control of the State oil company, Cepro. Gross later did an about turn and Krejcir was arrested on a “trumped-up charge of fraud”. That same year, Krejcir's father was kidnapped. He was never seen again. Krejcir alleges his father was killed by Czech state agents who believed he had the promissory note in his possession. He believes his father's body was dissolved in a vat of acid.

In early 2006, while Krejcir sunned himself on the Seychelles beaches, Czech newspapers linked him to the assassination of Frantisek Mrazek, the so-called “Godfather” of organised crime in the country. Mrazek was shot by a sniper outside the building that housed his offices. Krejcir laughs when asked if he had anything to do with the killing. “Yes, I shot one bullet from the Seychelles and the bullet travelled all the way direct to his heart. I'm very good. “What must I say my man? I saw this guy twice in my life. We never had a fight. It is the same situation as my father. They killed him and afterwards said it was my criminals. All the time it was the top government and secret service guys.”

“They say he (Mrazek) was the boss of the Mafia. Apparently, if you believe them, there are Mafia bosses all over the place. If you know any more people from the Czech republic, you probably know more bosses. I must be the worst one because I am wanted for murders and all this.”

Krejcir – who suggests his detractors have found him guilty by association – readily admits that he befriended or became acquainted with several of South Africa's most controversial businessmen and notorious underworld figures. Among them were Jackson, Smith, security company kingpin Cyril Beeka, Brett Kebble murder accused and convicted druglord Glen Agliotti, banker and self-confessed money launderer Alekos Panayi and Gauteng police crime intelligence head, Commissioner Joey Mabasa. “So what?” he asked. “People find me because they believe I've got money, that I'm an opportunity for them, that I can do some business with them. So the people are coming, especially to this restaurant, like a bee on honey.” He said he had a wide network of contacts.

Krejcir said he befriended Jackson's alleged killer, George Smith, in April 2007 while he was awaiting his extradition hearing. The two shared a cell at Kempton Park police station and after their release, Smith helped him “get connected” introduced him to “most of the people” he knows today. “I don't need anybody. I've got my money clean overseas. I've never made one rand in this country from any business. I'm enjoying my life. I bought property, assets, cars. I'm spending money which I brought in officially through the reserve banks of the Czech Republic and South Africa.”

Krejcir believes it will be to his advantage if the State wins their application tomorrow (Monday) for a review of the Kempton Park Magistrate's Court decision that has allowed him to remain in the country. If they do succeed, the State will proceed with a new extradition application. “If they start it again, it will take another four years. Even if they decide to extradite me, they cannot do so until the political asylum case is finished.”

Source: News 24