Hearing record
Day 118
Witness: Samuel Mashaba
Evidence led by Advocate Terry Motau SC (lead evidence leader), Advocate Teboho Mosikili
Gauteng traffic chief Samuel Mashaba's account of the 2021 Aeroton cocaine bust buckled as the commission produced years of WhatsApp chats showing his alleged funder was tipping him off.
The day in brief
What you need to know
- Samuel Mashaba, Chief Provincial Inspector of the Gauteng Traffic Police, testified that he acted on a tip-off about a truck carrying more than 700kg of cocaine from Durban to a warehouse in Aeroton, Johannesburg, in July 2021.
- The commission produced WhatsApp exchanges dating back to 2019 in which businessman Itumeleng 'Tumelo' Nku appeared to send Mashaba money, which Mashaba said he used to pay people he called his 'boys'.
- Evidence leaders pressed Mashaba on why his police statements described Nku only as an informant or source, and never disclosed that Nku had allegedly funded him - a gap that fed questions over whether he was truthful under oath.
- Mashaba leaned repeatedly on claimed memory lapses when confronted with the message trail, an answer the commission treated with open scepticism.
- The Aeroton consignment - illustrated by the archive's 'Yellow Jersey truck' exhibit - sits at the centre of a wider inquiry into how senior officers handled, and allegedly fought over credit for, a major seizure.
- In a lighter moment, commissioners donned Bafana Bafana jerseys ahead of South Africa's opening 2026 World Cup match against Mexico before the day's testimony resumed.
Full coverage
The day, in depth
The tip-off and the truck
Mashaba told the commission he received information about a long-haul truck moving a large cocaine consignment from Durban up to Johannesburg, and that this led to the July 2021 Aeroton operation. The seizure - reported at more than 700kg - is one of the largest cited before the commission and anchors the Aeroton case file. The archive records the vehicle as the 'Yellow Jersey' truck.
A relationship the statements did not mention
According to WhatsApp messages placed before the commission, the contact between Mashaba and Nku stretched back to 2019, with Nku periodically transferring money to Mashaba. The Citizen reported the exchange in which Mashaba was told, in effect, 'he was funding you'. Evidence leaders contrasted that picture with Mashaba's own police statements, which cast Nku as an informant rather than a benefactor or friend.
Memory lapses under scrutiny
EWN reported that the commission questioned Mashaba's claimed inability to recall the substance of the WhatsApp exchanges. The pattern of not remembering, set against a documented message history, framed the credibility contest that would carry into his second day in the chair.
Jerseys before the grilling
Before the hard questioning, the panel briefly set a lighter tone by wearing Bafana Bafana jerseys ahead of South Africa's 2026 World Cup opener against Mexico, a detail the archive records alongside the day's substantive testimony.
Our analysis
The bottom line
Day 118 turned on a simple but corrosive gap: the distance between what Mashaba wrote in his official statements and what his own phone appeared to show. An informant relationship is unremarkable in narcotics work; an undisclosed funding relationship with a man later linked to the very consignment seized is a different order of problem. The commission was entitled to test whether that omission was innocent or deliberate.
It is important to keep the categories separate. Nothing on this day established that Mashaba stole, diverted or profited from the cocaine, and he is presumed innocent. What the evidence did expose was a documentary record that his narrative struggled to absorb - and repeated memory failures rarely read well when the messages are on the screen. The weight of that is for the commission to assess, not for us to pronounce.
The lasting significance of the day is structural. If frontline officers can run drug operations on the strength of tips from privately connected, cash-paying contacts, the chain of custody and the chain of command are both compromised before a single brick is booked in. That is the systemic anxiety the Aeroton strand keeps circling back to.
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 Samuel Mashaba connects to
Itumeleng 'Tumelo' Nku
Nku tipped Mashaba to the Durban cocaine truck and, the commission heard, made payments to him; their WhatsApp chats drove the cross-examination in which Madlanga told Mashaba he was 'being untruthful'. Nku testified on 25-26 June 2026 (Days 126-127). Untested allegations.
View profile →Accuses of taking creditMajor-General Feroz Khan
Mashaba testified that Khan tried to take credit for the Aeroton bust and did not get the briefing from his team. Khan denies wrongdoing; untested allegations.
View profile →Same Aeroton sceneWitness I
Both were present in connection with the 2021 Aeroton bust and gave evidence on the disputed control of the scene and senior-officer interference.
View profile →Same investigationLieutenant Colonel Nkoana Joseph Sebola
Sebola's evidence matched a 'General Mashaba of Hawks' contact in Tumelo Nku's saved screenshots to Mashaba by cellphone number.
View profile →Exhibits
Objects from this testimony
In the room & on the record
Counsel, the panel and sources
Evidence led by
- Advocate Terry Motau SC (lead evidence leader)
- Advocate Teboho Mosikili
On the panel
- Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga (chairperson)
- Advocate Sesi Baloyi SC
- Advocate Sandile Khumalo SC
Sources
- EWN - Madlanga Commission questions traffic officer's claimed memory lapses over WhatsApp exchanges (11 June 2026) ↗
- The Citizen - 'He was funding you': Traffic chief questioned over 'secret' ties to informant in Aeroton drug bust ↗
- EWN - Madlanga Commission: Former Gauteng traffic chief Samuel Mashaba testifies (10 June 2026) ↗