Police are investigating how Sgt Fannie Nkosi got to be in possession of case dockets that were supposed to have been in a storage facility at the time they were found in a back room at his Pretoria home during a raid.
The dockets had been closed because there were no leads, and Sowetan has established one dates back to a September 2022 cash-in-transit (CIT) robbery in Musina.
Last month Nkosi told the Madlanga commission of inquiry that suspended deputy police commissioner Lt-Gen Shadrack Sibiya had deployed him to Musina for a CIT case in 2022. He told the commmission because of his hard work in the case he became closer to Sibiya.
National police spokesperson Brig Athlenda Mathe said they had deployed a team to police stations where the dockets were registered. “[They are] to ascertain how he got hold of the dockets, what are they doing in his possession and what role he played,” she said.
Nkosi was arrested a few days ago after the discovery of the dockets and more than R50,000 in cash concealed under a 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 SA Police Service items suspected to be stolen; and
- unlawful possession of a stun grenade.
According to Mathe the dockets were illegally in Nkosi’s possession because he is on suspension and not permitted to have dockets or a service pistol in his possession. She said when police raided his home after a tip-off, they found dockets in a back room on his property.
When Nkosi appeared in court, the state asked for the matter to be postponed to Monday so it had time to gather information for bail, which it intends to oppose. Magistrate Rene Venter granted the postponement
“They found six dockets, five of them originals and one copy,” Mathe said. “The six dockets [are for] CIT robberies, including one in Roodepoort and one in Musina, Limpopo. Others are car hijacking cases and all trace to serious and violent crimes. On further investigation we found all 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.
When Nkosi appeared in court, the state asked for the matter to be postponed to Monday so it had time to gather information for bail, which it intends to oppose. Magistrate Rene Venter granted the postponement.
Nkosi raised fears about being detained at the Kgosi Mampuru correctional facility in Pretoria, stating he feared he might be killed there. He asked he instead be detained at Villeria police station. 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 a bail application.
During testimony at the Madlanga commission of inquiry, it was alleged Nkosi was the middleman between Sibiya and criminal cartels. Information before the commission suggested the cartels are involved in CIT and cross-border hijackings and contact murders.
Nkosi’s WhatsApp messages, which were flagged at the commission, show late taxi boss Jotham “Mswazi” Msibi used to give Nkosi the case numbers of matters for which he wanted the details.
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 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 for which his brother’s company was bidding.
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
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