Hearing record
Day 103
Witness: Lieutenant Colonel Jakobus Prinsloo (retired)
Day 103, 7 May 2026. Retired Lieutenant-Colonel Jakobus Prinsloo testified that the Hawks' Port Shepstone offices were repeatedly broken into and wholly unsuitable for storing drugs before 541kg of cocaine worth R200 million vanished in 2021, and said he was made to sit a six-hour polygraph, which he passed, because he was treated as a suspect.
The day in brief
What you need to know
- Retired Lieutenant-Colonel Jakobus Prinsloo testified about the security failures at the Hawks' Port Shepstone office that preceded the November 2021 theft of 541kg of cocaine worth about R200 million.
- He described the offices as highly vulnerable and repeatedly broken into, with no CCTV, no external motion sensors and no alarm able to function during power outages, according to reporting on his evidence.
- Daily Maverick reported that a modest monthly security contract was allowed to lapse before the heist, underscoring how thinly the high-value exhibit store was protected.
- Prinsloo said he underwent a six-hour polygraph, which he passed, and believed he was treated as a suspect, noting that colleagues' tests lasted only about three hours.
- His account aligned with Major-General Flynn's from the previous day in pointing toward senior management over the handling of the exhibit-safe keys.
- On 19 June 2026 suspended KZN Hawks head Lesetja Senona told the commission that Prinsloo had misled it over the Port Shepstone storage handling, a dispute the commission will have to resolve.
- All those named remain presumed innocent; the theft itself remains the subject of the commission's inquiry and related investigation.
Full coverage
The day, in depth
A building unfit to hold R200m of cocaine
Prinsloo told the commission that the Port Shepstone offices were entirely unsuitable for storing large quantities of drugs, having been broken into repeatedly. Reporting on his testimony noted the office lacked CCTV, external motion sensors and a reliable alarm that could work during load-shedding. In November 2021 suspects entered the exhibit store through windows and removed 541kg of cocaine.
A lapsed security contract
Daily Maverick reported that a low-cost monthly guarding contract had been allowed to lapse before the theft, leaving the high-value store more exposed. The evidence built a picture of accumulated security neglect rather than a single failure. It fed the commission's question of whether the theft was enabled from inside.
The six-hour polygraph
Prinsloo said he sat a polygraph lasting about six hours, roughly double the time taken by colleagues, and that he passed it. He said the length reflected being treated as a suspect. The polygraph thread ran alongside evidence from other cleared officers who raised inside-job and victimisation concerns.
Our analysis
The bottom line
Prinsloo's testimony is powerful because it is granular and physical: no cameras, failing alarms, windows as an entry point and a lapsed guarding contract. Those are checkable, documentary claims about a building, and they corroborate the broader suggestion that the Port Shepstone store was a soft target. On the security facts, his account and Flynn's reinforce each other.
The harder terrain is intent and blame. Prinsloo's sense that he was treated as a suspect, evidenced by a longer polygraph, is understandable but subjective; polygraph duration is not proof of anything, and passing a polygraph is not itself exculpatory in law. The archive records these as his account, not as findings.
Crucially, this evidence is contested. Senona later told the commission that Prinsloo misled it about how the storage was handled. That direct conflict between two officers is a reason for caution: readers should hold Prinsloo's vivid security narrative as credible on the physical failures while recognising the commission has not yet resolved whose account of responsibility and custody to accept.
Analysis is the archive’s own comment on the public proceedings, grounded in the record above. It weighs the evidence and the process; questions of individual guilt are for the courts and the commission to decide. Everyone named is presumed innocent.
On the record
Who testified this day
Follow the threads
Who Lieutenant Colonel Jakobus Prinsloo (retired) connects to
Brigadier Campbell Nyuswa
Prinsloo's evidence on the safe keys points toward senior management.
View profile →Fellow cleared witnessWarrant Officer Karl Sander
Both Prinsloo and Sander passed polygraphs and raised the inside-job and victimisation threads.
View profile →Accused him of misleading the inquiryMajor General Lesetja Senona
On 19 June 2026 Senona told the commission Prinsloo had misled it over the Port Shepstone storage handling.
View profile →In the room & on the record
Counsel, the panel and sources
On the panel
- Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga (chairperson)
Sources
- Daily Maverick - Cops let R593-per-month security contract lapse before R200m cocaine Hawks building heist (7 May 2026) ↗
- IOL - Madlanga Commission | Retired Hawks officer's six-hour polygraph unveils alarming cocaine theft secrets (8 May 2026) ↗
- The Mercury - Hawks' security flaws exposed in R200 million cocaine theft (9 May 2026) ↗