SAPS Wars Part 1: The blurry blue line between the cops and the Cape underworld | amaBhungane
Cape Town gangs are fighting each other. So what's new? Cape Town police are also fighting - and the two battles are disturbingly intertwined.
Kinnear blamed six officers led by a Brigadier Sanjith Hansraj, who, according to police correspondence seen by amaBhungane, is attached to the office of Western Cape crime intelligence head Major General Mzwandile Tiyo. Modack has effectively claimed that his arrest was a set-up that would benefit Lifman, who also had an interest in nightclub security.
In mid-January Jacobs, the national crime intelligence boss, ratcheted up the conflict via an email to police bosses including National Commissioner Sitole, in which he backed Kinnear, calling the Tiyo group a"rogue team". Some of this fragmentation was exposed because of a national gun-smuggling investigation that revealed how firearms meant to have been kept or destroyed by the police were channelled to Western Cape gangsters.Vearey, then like now provincial detective head, and Jacobs, who used to head crime intelligence in the province, had initially driven Project Impi, the firearm smuggling probe.
According to their labour court affidavits, Project Impi started out as a Western Cape-based investigation in December 2013, but morphed into a national one. Project Impi netted a police colonel, Chris Prinsloo, in January 2015. He entered into a plea bargain in June 2016, just before Vearey and Jacobs were effectively demoted, and was sentenced to 18 years in jail.
Mihalik was initially on the defence team in Modack's extortion case, where Kinnear is the investigating officer. Kinnear charged during bail proceedings that Mihalik had involved himself in improper conduct. Mihalik withdrew despite denying the claim. "They had been in possession of thousands of firearms which they were supposed to destroy. Instead they were released to gangs who were killing many members of the public with them," Vearey stated.
It is in these roles that Jacobs and Vearey have now, according to Kinnear's complaint, been targeted by fellow police officers.The latest leg of the Western Cape police quarrel can be superimposed on the vicious turf war that has been gripping the provincial underworld. After Beeka's death, security operations in Cape Town were initially consolidated under shadowy figures including Colin's estranged brother, Jerome"Donkie" Booysen, and his associate, Lifman.
Like Beeka before, Modack is acquainted with Zuma's son Duduzane and parades his ANC connections. He once wore a jacket in court sporting the party's logo. The claims can be distilled into two categories - the first being that Kinnear and officers working with him were under the influence of the Lifman group, while the second was that Modack was in cahoots with at least one member of the Tiyo group.
William Booth, Lifman's attorney, told amaBhungane in February:"Mr Lifman is in [the] process of suing the police for his unlawful arrest in Feb 2018 and an unlawful search at his home some months prior to that..."In July 2017, police officers raided his home in Plattekloof, but Modack charged that they had no search warrant and that the officers"burgled" his home and stole classified documents from a safe.
Vearey and Christopher both trained in ANC intelligence and appear to be close. Christopher was also close to Beeka - as well as to former senior intelligence official Mo Shaik. Darmanovic, a South African of Montenegrin Serb extraction, previously worked with the SSA and had known Beeka. He died in a hail of bullets in the Serbian capital of Belgrade in May 2018.
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