Heist! by Anneliese Burgess

Author:Anneliese Burgess
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781776091720
Publisher: Penguin Random House South Africa
Published: 2018-04-06T00:00:00+00:00

22

Caught in the spider’s web

Pongola High Court, 2007–2012

The inside of an armoured vehicle following a road attack.

The trial of the infamous KZN 26 gang became one of the biggest in South African criminal history. The accused faced a total of 858 charges, 108 witnesses were subpoenaed, 12 000 pages of documentary exhibits were raked up, and the court record came to over 7 000 pages. By the time they were sentenced, the twenty-six gang members had already spent six years in prison.

The actual trial took almost five years and, throughout this time, the KZN 26 refused to testify, denied any complicity and flagrantly dragged out the legal process by repeatedly changing legal representation. It was a strategy that might have worked if it hadn’t been for the ground-breaking use of cellphone evidence that would ultimately tie twenty-three of the men to the crime.

Despite the hundreds of exhibits painstakingly gathered by investigators in the hours, days and weeks following the arrests at the Mvoti Toll Plaza, the prosecution had little hard evidence.

None of the seized firearms could ballistically be linked to the scene. The angle grinder found in one of the vehicles couldn’t be matched forensically to the hacked-open Fidelity van at Charters Creek. The wads of cash discovered in the cars and on the accused were circumstantial evidence at best, and even the bank bags, false registration plates and cash deposit receipts found at the Mzingazi safe house couldn’t be directly linked to any of the accused. No fingerprints, no DNA; just big, fat, mind-blowingly obvious – but circumstantial – evidence that would not hold up in court.

This is a classic conundrum of the burden of proof, says investigating officer Lieutenant Colonel Eddie van Rensburg: ‘You know your guys are as guilty as hell, but you haven’t got the evidence to prove it in court. We had AK-47s, an LM5 and the revolver stolen off the guard at Charters. We had R1.115 million in cash, various serialised money bags, unopened Fidelity smart boxes, false number plates, Thembiso Sithole’s evidence. But, even playing our best hand, we would only have been able to make five counts of armed robbery and attempted murder stick … and maybe another count of negligent handling of a licensed firearm. We just couldn’t satisfy the burden of proof, despite all the circumstantial evidence. We needed another plan.’1

Among the exhibits seized at Mvoti were thirty-eight unregistered ‘burner’ cellphones. Major General Johan Booysen, then head of the Hawks in KwaZulu-Natal, was in charge of the Organised Crime Unit at Cato Manor, the team spearheading the investigation. From experience, he knew that thirty-eight cellphones between twenty-four people meant something, and hoped they could hold the smoking-gun evidence his team so badly required.2 But they needed a specialist who would not only be able to analyse the data locked up in the devices, but also be able to present a credible case in court.

The prosecutor, Advocate Cyril Selepe, suggested they call in Thereza Botha, an analyst attached to the SAPS Crime Information Analysis Centre in Vryheid.

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