The roadside stop, and the R1.5 million
A JMPD officer took a businessman's cash bag in August 2023 and drove off. He has since been convicted.
Per the IOL network and Inside Politics, Mashala's evidence set out the case he inherited. In August 2023 JMPD officer Eric Mphahlele, driving a marked departmental vehicle, stopped a grey Mercedes-Benz carrying the businessman Nawazish Ali Raja and his wife on Crownwood Road in Johannesburg. The couple were taking R1.5 million in cash to buy stock. On Raja's account Mphahlele accused him of speeding, found the bag, accused him of money laundering, said he would arrest and handcuff him and did not, took the cash to the patrol vehicle, named first Booysens and then Johannesburg Central as the station to follow him to, and then drove off into traffic. Raja said he heard Mphahlele tell a woman on the telephone that he had found the money. Captain N.J. Tauatswala told Mashala about the complaint on 12 August 2023, and on 18 August 2023 Raja and his wife identified Mphahlele at an identity parade at Hillbrow Police Station. Mphahlele's conviction is a matter of the criminal courts and not a finding of this commission.
The R250 000 offer, and the section 252A application
On his evidence the docket was to be made to disappear, with a senior JMPD officer arranging and a Hawks captain handing over.
Mashala told the commission that on 14 August 2023 he and Tauatswala met Mphahlele at a Sasol garage and were offered R250 000 to make the docket disappear. Per SABC News, Captain Keshi Mabunda of the Hawks and JMPD officer Tintswalo Rikhotso offered to arrange it; per Inside Politics, Rikhotso arranged the bribe because she did not trust the Hawks officers, and Hawks captain Matimu Mabunda was to facilitate the payment. The two outlets give the Hawks captain a different first name, so this archive uses the surname only. The investigators applied to the Hawks to run the matter as an entrapment operation in terms of section 252A of the Criminal Procedure Act, the provision that allows officers to play along with a bribe in order to catch the parties in the act. None of the officers named has been convicted of anything arising from this and all are presumed innocent.
Telling the suspect about the operation
They briefed the person they believed was holding the money, and invited her to join the operation instead of arresting her.
The concession that made the day was this one. Believing Mabunda was herself part of the bribery scheme, Mashala and his colleague told her about the planned entrapment and proposed that she turn and participate, on the understanding that she would be arrested when she produced the cash. Per Inside Politics, Mashala also suspected Inspector Emma Phakoane, Mphahlele's supervisor, of being directly involved, 'because over the phone, she could give the directive to the officer, Eric Mphahlele, in the very same car that was used', and investigators told her about the operation too. Per the IOL network his concession was: 'It might be where we lost it wrong; we got it wrong there. It might be where we made a mistake in telling her.' His position is that the operation would have collapsed anyway because Mabunda would have warned the others.
What the panel said about it
The chairperson called it a glaring mistake; a commissioner called it sabotage.
Carried in nearly the same words by SABC News, the IOL network, The Citizen and Inside Politics. Justice Madlanga: 'You are supposed to be a specialised branch of the police, aren't you? I would even say you are supposed to be super detectives, aren't you?' Mashala: 'Yes, we are.' Madlanga: 'You are defeating the very purpose of what you sought to achieve.' And: 'Just doesn't make sense at all to me. Does it make sense to you?' Mashala: 'No, Your Worship.' Per the IOL network the chairperson's conclusion was 'All of this ends up being totally inconclusive. And in my book, I would say you were responsible for that.' Per Inside Politics, Commissioner Advocate Sandile Khumalo SC went further: 'It looks like you and your colleagues sabotaged the whole 252 operation because the money was there', and 'all she had to do was give it to you and you arrest her'. Commissioner Advocate Sesi Baloyi SC asked why the investigators were still discussing recruiting Mabunda at the point they believed she held the money. Per Inside Politics, Madlanga also pressed Mashala on why his written statement did not state plainly that the investigators believed she already had the cash, and Mashala could not explain the omission.