Proximity to politicians, law enforcement officers and business leaders ensures criminal cartels thrive, according to South Africa’s Crime Intelligence head Dumisani Khumalo, who has also alleged that nearly all Gauteng’s police officers work for a cartel. National Crime Intelligence head Dumisani Khumalo has alleged that, based on a previous threat analysis, nearly all South African Police Service (SAPS) officers in Gauteng are working for a criminal cartel. He was testifying on Thursday, 15 January 2026, at Parliament’s ad hoc committee investigating accusations that a cartel, known as the Big Five, has infiltrated South Africa’s criminal justice system, law enforcement, politics and private security.
Khumalo made staggering admissions and allegations, including that police officers were offering protection, for a fee, to crime syndicate members. He also detailed concerning issues related to two connected, but separate, high-level police operations focused on crime suspects Katiso “KT” Molefe and Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala. Both Molefe and Matlala, who respectively face criminal accusations relating to murder and attempted murder, are accused of being Big Five cartel members (they have not been charged over this).
On 6 December 2024, as part of sensitive police investigations, Molefe was to be arrested and Matalala was set to be questioned (he was arrested months later). These policing operations had necessitated extra support from members of KwaZulu-Natal’s political killings task team (PKTT), which Khumalo was project managing, for an investigative team in Gauteng. Khumalo testified that through a related threat and risk assessment, “It had come out that almost the whole of SAPS in Gauteng is working for the cartel.” He said that there had been interference in the Molefe arrest operation, and alleged that some of this emanated from Major GeneralRichard Shibiri, head of the police’s National Organised Crime Unit. This unit falls under the national commissioner of crime detection, Lieutenant General Shadrack Sibiya, who was previously suspended as a result of this overall scandal.
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