{"id":69526,"date":"2025-07-07T14:11:39","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T14:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=69526"},"modified":"2025-07-07T14:11:39","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T14:11:39","slug":"south-africas-police-minister-accused-of-links-to-criminal-gangs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=69526","title":{"rendered":"South Africa\u2019s police minister accused of links to criminal gangs"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>1 Minute, 54 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>
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Police Minister Senzo Mchunu has been accused of having ties tocriminal gangs and of meddling in police investigations into politically motivated murders.<\/p>\n

These explosive allegations were made by KwaZulu-Natal police boss Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi at a press briefing on Sunday.<\/p>\n

He said Mr Mchunu was receiving financial support from an allegedly corrupt businessman to fund his \u201cpolitical endeavours\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Mchunu has since denied what he says are \u201cwild allegations\u201d while President Cyril Ramaphosa said they were of \u201cgrave national security concern\u201d and \u201creceiving the highest priority attention\u201d.<\/p>\n

Gen Mkhwanazi detailed a sequence of events he claims led to the \u201corchestrated\u201d disbandment of a task force set up in 2018 to investigate the killing of politicians, mainly in KwaZulu-Natal.<\/p>\n

Gen Mkhwanazi said the team\u2019s investigations had uncovered links to high-profile individuals \u2014 including politicians, police officials, and businesspeople tied to a drug cartel syndicate \u2013 and this is why the team was disbanded.<\/p>\n

When he dissolved the unit earlier this year, Mchunu said it was not adding value in the province, despite many cases remaining unsolved.<\/p>\n

According to Gen Mkhwanazi, a total of 121 case files were allegedly removed from the unit on the minister\u2019s instruction and without the authorisation of his boss, the national police commissioner General Fannie Masemola.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese case dockets have, since March, been sitting at the head office ever since without any investigation work done on them. Five of these dockets already had instructions to [effect] arrests.\u201d<\/p>\n

The provincial police chief also alleged Mr Mchunu had ties to a controversial businessman who was \u201cfinancially supporting\u201d the minister\u2019s political career.<\/p>\n

Vusimuzi Matlala had a lucrative contract with the police before it was abruptly cancelled when he was arrested for attempted murder in May. Gen Mkhwanazi shared copies of text messages and a payment allegedly made by Mr Matlala to prove this.<\/p>\n

Gen Masemola, on his part, said he would address these allegations later in the week when he announces the appointment of the temporary crime intelligence boss.<\/p>\n

Criminal intelligence chief Lt-Gen Dumisani Khumalo was arrested over fraud and corruption allegations last month.<\/p>\n

Gen Khumalo and the other six had been linked to an ongoing investigation into alleged abuse of intelligence funds and potentially unlawful appointments within the South African Police Service (SAPS).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Police Minister Senzo Mchunu has been accused of having ties tocriminal gangs and of meddling in police investigations into politically motivated murders. These explosive allegations were made by KwaZulu-Natal police… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1972,1910,1973,1974],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-africa","category-international","category-senzo-mchunu","category-soth-africa","post_format-post-format-link"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=69526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69526\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=69526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=69526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=69526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}