When police raided Sgt Fannie Nkosi’s Pretoria home, they found cash-in-transit (CIT) and hijacking dockets that had been closed because there were no leads.
According to national police spokesperson Brig Athlenda Mathe the dockets were illegally in Nkosi’s possession and not at the police storage facility.
Sowetan has established that one of the dockets found at his home dates back to September 2022 CIT robbery in Musina.
Mathe said Nkosi who is on suspension is not permitted to have any dockets or a service pistol in his possession.
However after police raided his home after a tip-off, they found dockets in a backroom on his property.
“At the back of his house, they (police) found six dockets, five of them original dockets and one copy,” Mathe said.
“The six dockets [are of ] CIT robberies; one that happened in Rooderpoort and one in Musina, Limpopo.
“Others are car hijacking cases and all of them trace to serious and violent crimes.”
“Further investigation [continued and] we found that all these six dockets ... were closed as undetected.”
According to Mathe, when a docket is closed and labelled undetected, it means police cannot find any leads to an arrest.
“[It means] there is no new information and the case is then archived. When the docket is archived it is not allowed to be in the possession of an investigating officer,” she said.
Mathe said the dockets should have been stored in a storage facility at the police station where they were registered.
“So our team now has been deployed to various police stations where these dockets were registered to ascertain how he got hold of these dockets and what are they doing in his possession and what role he played,” she added.
Last month Nkosi told the Madlanga commission that suspended deputy police commissioner Lt-Gen Shadrack Sibiya had deployed him to Musina to CIT case in 2022.
He told the commmission that because of his hardwork in the case he became closer to Sibiya.
Nkosi was arrested following the discovery of the dockets as well more than R50 000 in cash concealed under the mattress, a revolver and an R5 firearm.
He appeared at the Pretoria North magistrate’s court on Tuesday on charges that include failure to safeguard firearms, defeating the ends of justice, failure to secure ammunition, possession of SAPS goods suspected to be stolen and unlawful possession of a stun grenade.
In court, lawyers for the state asked for the matter to be postponed to Monday so that they can have time to gather information for bail, which they intend to oppose.
Magistrate Rene Venter granted the postponement.
In court, Nkosi raised his fears of being detained at the Kgosi Mampuru correctional facility in Pretoria, stating that he feared he might be killed there.
He asked that he be detained at Villeria police station instead.
However, Venter ruled against him and ordered that he be kept at Kgosi Mampuru but in a specific section.
The matter was postponed to April 13 for bail application.
During testimony at the Madlanga Commission, it was alleged that Nkosi was the middleman between suspended deputy commissioner Shadrack Sibiya and criminal cartels.
Information before the commission suggest that the cartels are involved in cash-in-transit and cross-border hijackings as well as contact murders, among other things.
Nkosi’s WhatsApp messages, which were flagged at the commission, show that late taxi boss Jotham “Mswazi” Msibi used to tell Nkosi the case numbers of matters he wanted the details of.
Msibi is reported to have been the leader of the Big Five criminal cartel.
Last month, the commission also flagged a WhatsApp text in which a taxi boss, Irvin Mthakathi, gave Nkosi the ID details of a suspect and asked Nkosi to verify if the owner of the ID was indeed arrested for the murder of Vereeniging engineer Armand Swart.
When the commission resumed on Tuesday, Tshwane Metro Police Department chief Yolande Faro testified that Nkosi had communicated with high-ranking municipality officials about a multi-million rand security tender that his brother’s company was bidding for.
Faro described Nkosi’s chats with metro officials, including CFO Gareth Minisi, about the municipality’s security, as irregular.
“He [Nkosi] had no authority,” she said. - additional reporting by Sinesipho Schrieber
Sowetan
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.