A TimesLIVE investigation reveals how alleged international crime bosses have been given free rein by corrupt police and home affairs officials, enabling them to terrorise local and international business owners with impunity
Despite being declared a prohibited person in 2014, Tariq 'Baba' Tahir remains in the countryA web of corruption in the department of home affairs has allowed a suspected cartel leader to roam freely in South Africa despite him being declared a prohibited person nine years ago.
A police crime intelligence source said since i2007 Tahir has allegedly worked his way up to become Lajpal’s leader. The DHA admitted that he remains in South Africa because home affairs officials wiped his profile clean. In 2013 Tahir changed his surname to Bhatti and in the years since, DHA border control movement data show he has used the aliases Tariq Mahmood Guhlam, Tariq Mahmood Bhatti, Tariq Mehmood Bhatti and Tariq Tahir.
The document warns Tahir “manipulates government control systems and moves across international boundaries without any legal documentation”. During that same month, he was charged with kidnapping a Pakistani businessman in Sunnyside, Pretoria. Neither police nor the National Prosecuting Authority could say what happened to the case. NPA spokesperson Lumka Mahajane said the SAPS was unable to locate the docket.
Tahir refused an interview request with TimesLIVE Investigations and referred journalists to his lawyers.Last month Dawood provided the DHA with an affidavit about her relationship with Tahir, whom she says she met in Lenasia “in 2005/2006” when her father, Abdul Rafeek Dawood, was teaching Tahir “how to fix cars”.
“The Counter Corruption Branch is following leads to get to the bottom of this. The department will revoke his status.” Qoza said Tahir frequently travelled from South Africa on his Pakistani passport between November 2011 and the time his visa was first revoked in August 2014, “and has been a frequent traveller ever since”.
“The Counter Corruption Branch found two-thirds of corruption cases emanate from the immigration branch, particularly the permitting unit ... He said to stop the altering of unfavourable findings on a person’s immigration records, the department had installed firewalls on its internal databases. “Another option to try to lift a prohibition is through a rehabilitation application, which is done once you have been deported and have been living outside South Africa for a minimum of four years. You have to show you are truly remorseful and provide an affidavit and police clearance certificates among other things.”
The department of home affairs letter which declares Tariq Baba Tahir prohibited. Based on this letter, which was written in 2014, he should have been deported. He never was.Two official department of home affairs letters, written in 2014 to Tahir and his lawyer Riaan Louw, give insight into the processes which led to his prohibition declaration and the expungement of his marriage to Zainub Bibi Dawood.
“Now the High Commission of Pakistan, Pretoria has confirmed to the Department that he is known as Tariq Mehmood Tahir.” The second DHA letter, written by assistant director for permitting Rachelle Reyneke, informs Tahir he has been declared prohibited. “He does not qualify for a port of entry visa, admission into the Republic, a visa or a permanent residence permit.”
Border movement control data show Tahir travelled 38 times between 2013 and 2023 to Pakistan, Australia, the UK, Singapore, Dubai and Mozambique using his different names and passports. Their modus operandi turned kidnapping for ransom from a sophisticated boutique industry to an industrial venture. Since his arrest, Mki has also been charged with the April 20 kidnapping of two Chinese people in Macassar. He abandoned his bail bid in the matter in the Somerset West magistrate’s court on June 13 when he appeared with his co-accused, Bandile Nqwiliso and Yanga Thomas. Nqwiliso and Thomas were both denied bail.
The latter, in Greenpoint, is also where half of the task team investigating kidnappings for ransom in the Western Cape is based. This included the eight men who were arrested for the kidnapping of an 8-year-old girl in Athlone last year. The men, who cannot be named according to a court order, have abandoned their bail bids.
Aside from the arrests made by the task team since October, two separate groupings, one of which Jiyose is now also being linked to, are being prosecuted in the Khayelitsha Priority Crimes Court for multiple kidnappings. They consist of a kidnapping with a quick turnaround time between when the victim is taken and released. These are known as “express kidnappings”. They often take place on a Thursday or a Friday, followed by a ransom call the same or next day.Research conducted by TimesLIVE Investigations shows Cape Town’s kidnapping-for-ransom masterminds have a net that is becoming less discriminatory in who it takes.
or to keep information such as convictions off the police system, making it difficult for investigators to oppose bail. The Lingelethu West victims and the Pakistani businessman were allegedly held in the same shack in a newly established informal settlement close to Monwabisi Beach along the False Bay coastline.
During a court appearance in the Khayelitsha magistrate's court on March 1, after their arrests in connection with the Lingelethu West kidnapping, the court heard that Yekiso and his co-accused, Lungisa Mafuneka,Yekiso had an outstanding warrant for failing to attend a hijacking trial in which he is accused and Mafuneka had two previous convictions for kidnapping, for which he was paroled in 2019.
They said Mki is believed to be linked to the kidnappings in which the Lingelethu West duo was involved.
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