Witness
Senior Hawks investigator · Gauteng
Testifying · investigating officer
The Hawks investigator who took command of the chaotic July 2021 Aeroton crime scene and arrested two SAPS members he says were caught trying to steal from the R286 million cocaine seizure. He told the commission a senior officer phoned and asked him to resolve the bust 'amicably' on the spot - he refused - and has since linked the Aeroton operation, through intercepted WhatsApp messages and cellphone downloads, to the same cartel behind the stolen Durban-port consignment.
This profile summarises testimony and evidence given on the public record before the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry. It restates allegations as presented at the hearings and is not a finding of guilt, liability, or wrongdoing by any person.
Key disclosures
Sebola maintains he, not Crime Intelligence's Maj-Gen Feroz Khan, was in control of the Aeroton scene.
Against conflicting accounts from other officials, he told the commission he took full command of the volatile premises - a contest over authority that runs through much of the Aeroton evidence.
He described officers using the 'rip-off' method - offloading the cocaine before any formal port verification.
Rogue officers, he said, prematurely opened the containers claiming a Crime Intelligence mandate, and a marked Booysens police vehicle had to physically block a Nissan bakkie that was being used to flee with the offloaded drugs. He detailed how clearing and customs officials are manipulated so illegal cargo leaves containers before it is checked.
He personally arrested two SAPS members on suspicion of trying to steal the consignment.
Among them was Warrant Officer Marumo Magane. Sebola said more than 20 people - including Flying Squad members and officers in unmarked vehicles - were circulating at the scene, and that the driver of a red Kia Cerato admitted being brought in to help load the bakkie but froze when asked why marked police cars were being chased away.
While he was arresting Magane, a caller who named himself as Brigadier Shibiri asked him to resolve the bust 'amicably'.
Sebola said he refused and escalated the interference to senior management, including General Ebrahim Kadwa. Kadwa later told him Shibiri had phoned him too - but with the opposite instruction, 'arrest them' - which Sebola put to the commission as evidence of senior officers playing both sides.
He analysed intercepted messages from a suspect's phone showing the container operation being coordinated.
Screenshots found on the device of suspect Tumelo Nku, he testified, discussed container operations and attempts to manipulate clearing and customs officials - tying the logistics of the seizure back to an organised network rather than a one-off theft.
He said cellphone downloads connect the two compromised seizures to the same suspect.
Downloads from arrested officers, on his account, linked the cocaine that vanished from the Port Shepstone Hawks store after the Durban-port seizure to the same figure orchestrating the Aeroton shipment - one trafficking pattern across both busts.
He walked the commission through screenshots pulled from Tumelo Nku's seized phone - from the self-deleting Swiss app Threema, plus Telegram and WhatsApp.
In the messages, he testified, Nku and a contact saved only as 'Alpha' (whom Nku called 'boss') coordinated photographing containers and their seals at Durban harbour with a forklift operator, a crane operator and 'customs guys'. A contact saved as 'General Mashaba of Hawks' was, he said, matched by cellphone number to suspect Samuel Mashaba. Because Threema deletes messages once read, only the screenshots Nku saved survived.
A shipping-manifest screenshot on the device pointed, he said, to someone inside the port feeding the syndicate.
Sebola testified that a Transnet track-and-trace manifest found on Nku's phone could only have come from inside the port, and that the chats discussed steering whether the vessel berthed at Pier 1 or Pier 2 - a 'mission impossible' the group wanted to avoid. He said he followed up and established the source.
He testified that IPID's report recommended against him and his colleagues - built on complaints by the very suspects.
Sebola said the IPID recommendation leaned on complaints by Samuel Mashaba and two officers and set aside the forensic and cellphone evidence in his docket. He disputed IPID's account that it was refused the docket, saying any request should have come formally through his commanders, and noted that despite the identified players no further prosecution has followed since he left the case.
Pressed by Commissioner Baloyi, he said the meddling in Aeroton was not an isolated case but part of a pattern he had seen for years.
Sebola told the commission that as far back as 2019, while posted to the Hawks at OR Tambo International Airport, his team was ordered to return seized US dollars to travellers who had declared something other than the dollars - cash that had already been sent to the Reserve Bank as per procedure - and to hand back other confiscated goods. He said senior officers' involvement in the Aeroton investigation was 'unusual' and raised doubt as to whether they were assisting or frustrating the case, naming Maj-Gen Feroz Khan and placing Generals Kadwa and Lekalakala (Gauteng Crime Intelligence head Maj-Gen Josias Lekalakala) at the scene. He said he was instructed - via Gen Kadwa, on Khan's say-so - to obtain a statement from an accused, Phakula, in prison, and that the unit commander for organised crime, Col Zondi, was never informed of the matter at all.
Timeline
541kg of cocaine is intercepted at Isipingo; the consignment later vanishes from the Port Shepstone Hawks store - the theft Sebola ties to the same network.
Roughly 741kg of cocaine worth an estimated R286 million is seized at Aeroton, south of Johannesburg. The scene descends into chaos as officers move to offload the containers.
Sebola gives evidence on his role at the Aeroton scene and the contested question of who was in command.
Across a full day he walks the commission through the encrypted-chat trail from Tumelo Nku's phone - Threema, Telegram and WhatsApp - naming 'Alpha', a Transnet inside hand steering the vessel's berth, and the IPID report that recommended against him.
On the stand
Connections
Analyst, SAPS
Sebola arrested Magane at Aeroton; it was during that arrest that Magane handed him the phone with the caller asking him to resolve the bust 'amicably'.
View profile →Named in IPID's probeAssistant Director of Investigations, IPID
Maphosho ran the IPID investigation whose complaint named Sebola among the accused officers; he told the commission its report ignored his forensic evidence.
View profile →Disputed who controlled the sceneDeputy head, SAPS Crime Intelligence (suspended)
Sebola told the commission he, not Crime Intelligence's Maj-Gen Feroz Khan, was in command of the Aeroton scene, and that Khan's involvement was 'unusual' - testimony the summoned Khan is yet to answer.
View profile →Alleged interference callHead of the SAPS Organised Crime component (dismissed)
Sebola said a caller who named himself as Brigadier Shibiri asked him to resolve the bust 'amicably'; he refused and escalated it. Maj-Gen Richard Shibiri, later dismissed from SAPS over his Matlala ties, is the prominent officer of that surname before the commission.
View profile →Same investigationHawks narcotics team leader (SANEB)
Both Hawks officers gave evidence on the Aeroton cocaine bust and alleged senior-officer interference in how it was handled.
View profile →Same investigationChief Provincial Inspector, Gauteng Traffic Police
Sebola's evidence matched a 'General Mashaba of Hawks' contact in Tumelo Nku's saved screenshots to Mashaba by cellphone number.
View profile →Related caseThe case file that ties these witnesses together.
Open case file →Exhibits
Sources
