Testimony at the Madlanga Commission has placed fresh focus on the theft of cocaine worth R200 million from a police storage facility in KwaZulu-Natal.
Hawks Major-General Hendrik Flynn, who heads the Serious Organised Crime Investigation unit within the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, testified in Pretoria on Tuesday.
He outlined operational failures and questionable decisions that preceded the November 2021 break-in at a Hawks facility in Port Shepstone.
Suspects broke into the exhibit storage facility through windows and stole 541kg of cocaine.
The alarm system was not working at the time. Police later opened a case of theft and business burglary.
Earlier Durban seizure linked to stolen drugs
Flynn revisited a July 2021 incident at Durban harbour, where law enforcement officers intercepted a shipping container suspected of carrying drugs.
Border policing officials responded before members of the South African Police Service and confiscated about one tonne of narcotics.
Officers then transported the drugs to Maydon Wharf Police Station.
Flynn told the commission that traffickers often move drugs through key transit points such as OR Tambo International Airport, Lebombo Border Post and Durban harbour.
He said sophisticated syndicates typically use shipping containers for bulk trafficking.
Police first discovered the cocaine later stolen in Port Shepstone at an Isipingo depot in June 2021 after acting on intelligence about a suspicious shipment.
Officers initially stored the drugs at Isipingo Police Station but moved them, packed in 27 bags, to the Hawks facility in Port Shepstone due to space constraints.
Flynn said suspended provincial Hawks head Lesetja Senona took control of the storage keys when officers booked the drugs as exhibits.
He described this move as a clear deviation from standard procedure.
Chain of custody compromised
Flynn explained that a designated SAP13 clerk should control access to exhibit storage facilities.
This system protects the chain of custody and ensures accountability if evidence goes missing.
He said Senona later handed the keys to warrant officer Mpangase, who did not have authority to manage the facility.
Flynn also pointed to irregular access to the vault on 23 and 24 June.
He stressed that officers must seal evidence at the crime scene, not after placing it in storage.
He described the handling of the cocaine as “upside-down” and inconsistent with proper procedure.
Questions over handling of drug samples
Flynn questioned why police returned to the facility to collect samples of the drugs instead of following standard forensic processes.
He said investigators are not scientists and should not conduct such sampling.
Flynn noted that this was the only case where officers handled samples in this way, raising concerns about the intent behind the process.
He suggested that officials may never have intended to send the full batch of drugs for forensic analysis.
Flynn told the commission that organised crime depends on corruption within both government and the private sector.
He said criminal networks rely on internal weaknesses and compromised officials to operate, adding that corruption often enables large-scale drug trafficking operations.
