The angle grinder

What it is

An angle grinder, the cutting power tool that testimony says was used to cut open the walk-in safe at the Hawks Serious Organised Crime offices in Port Shepstone. Over a weekend in November 2021 the 541kg of seized cocaine was taken from that store, the theft carried out with a grinder. It is the everyday tool at the heart of what witnesses have called an inside-job heist.

Why it matters

The grinder is the physical instrument of the theft that turned a major drug bust into a disappearance from police custody. That a high-value evidence store could be cut open over a weekend underlines the security failures (no working alarm, no cameras, an ignored earlier break-in) that the inquiry says made the cocaine easy to steal.