Gauteng Hawks boss Major-General Ebrahim Kadwa’s undercover tradecraft and multi-agency collaborations raised SA’s profile on the global stage. Pictures: Hein Kaiser He’s a kind, soft spoken man whose days brim with serious crime. That, in short, summarises Gauteng Hawks boss Major-General Ebrahim Kadwa’s career.
From rural KwaZulu-Natal to international multi-agency raids and undercover operations, Kadwa has spent decades operating in the spaces most people only ever read about. Listening to his achievements, anecdotes and love for his work is fascinating. Then, his purple socks paired with a black suit and tie hint at a different side to one of South Africa’s top cops, somewhat removed from the brutality of law enforcement.
Kadwa was born in a small farming community in Brema, on the south coast of KwaZulu-Natal, far removed from organised crime. Law enforcement, he said, was not a natural family expectation when it came to career choices. “All my family is in business and professional careers,” he said.
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“I was the odd one out having this interest in the police.” When he joined the South African Police Service, it surprised them. His first posting was Durban Central, where his interest in specialist crime fighting was piqued early on. “I was very fortunate to be exposed to the tracing unit,” he said.
The unit focused on housebreakers, vehicle theft and proactive hotspot operations, not reactive policing. It was the precision with which detectives worked that fascinated him more than, say, being a beat officer. Later, Kadwa joined the security police.
It was during the turbulent ’80s and a decision he acknowledged remains uncomfortable territory, decades later. But despite the institution’s past, he said that the operational skills it taught him were priceless. “There are skills and tradecraft that we learned there that proved invaluable in dealing with serious organised crime throughout the balance of my career,” he said.
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