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Confidential info leaks in high-profile police investigations exposed

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Information from a docket into one of the most impactful underworld gang murders in the Western Cape was apparently leaked, one of several leaks in high-profile police investigations.

Probes in which confidential information was spread include that into the January 2016 killing of Nathaniel “Nigger” Moses, who was suspected to have headed a faction of the 28s known as the Mobsters.

His murder sparked several shootings as it resulted in power shifts and tensions in several gangs after his killing.

Leaks also occurred in the matter involving former MP Vytjie Mentor’s state capture claims, as well as the mammoth national firearms smuggling investigation.

 The gun probe is said to be the biggest in the country and uncovered, among other things, corruption within the police.

At least two of the leaks are detailed in papers from the Cape Town Labour Court in a matter involving Major-General Jeremy Vearey and Major-General Peter Jacobs.

The duo, instrumental in the mammoth firearms probe, approached the court after they were suddenly transferred from their positions in June 2016.

On Thursday, August 3, the court set aside their transfers.

Papers attached to an affidavit by Vearey detail information leaks.

Alleged gang boss assassinated

It said he became aware that his name was dragged into the Moses murder case.

Moses was killed on January 15, 2016.

He was suspected of heading up the Mobsters – a group of hitmen and faction of the 28s gang responsible for scores of murders around the Western Cape.

Two gunmen had walked up to Moses, who was parked outside a car rental dealership in Main Road, Strand, and shot him at least six times in the head.

The killing is believed to have sparked several retaliation shootings.

No arrests were made for Moses’s murder.

Murder case claims

Vearey was later implicated in the killing.

In April 2016 an affidavit surfaced by a now-jailed self-styled whistleblower, Sylvano Hendricks, a transgender woman who calls herself Queeny Madikizela-Malema.

The affidavit alleged that Vearey worked with a suspected gang boss in the Moses murder.

This affidavit was drawn up in community safety MEC Dan Plato’s office and sparked claims of a smear campaign against Vearey, which Plato denied.

Vearey, in a statement attached to his Labour Court affidavit, said in April 2016 during a meeting with a journalist and editor of a weekend publication, it came to his attention that the journalist had an incomplete statement into the murder of Moses.

News24 is in possession of the incomplete statement.

“Although I did not confirm this to the journalist in question, I realised that the statement… was an incomplete copy of the actual statement in the murder docket,” Vearey said.

“After this meeting I contacted [a lieutenant colonel] of the Provincial Gang Investigation Task Team and tasked him to determine how a statement from one of his team’s cases had leaked.”

Vearey said the lieutenant colonel reported to him that Hendricks and an official from a politician’s office got a copy of the statement from a warrant officer.

News24 understands that Moses had been involved in the illicit firearms trade and before his murder had someone storing a cache of guns and weapons for him.

Lawyer’s killing unearths confidential info

It emerged in May that confidential information had also been leaked in the mammoth national firearms investigation.

This was referred to in a Western Cape High Court order from May, which showed a confidential investigation diary in the matter was leaked.

News24 understands these documents were apparently given to lawyer Noorudien Hassan before he was murdered in November 2016.

It is understood the leaked information, relating to the case and with details about an informant, was apparently found in Hassan’s offices after he was killed.

No arrests were made for his killing.

Hassan was on a legal team representing some of those implicated in the gun smuggling investigation.

Mentor statement media leak

Vearey’s affidavit also touched on the apparent leak in the Mentor matter.

He said when he had been deputy provincial commissioner for detective services, the position he was suddenly transferred from in 2016, he was responsible for overseeing the recording and handling of Mentor’s state capture statement.

Mentor’s statement detailed, among other aspects, claims about the controversial Gupta family’s close ties to President Jacob Zuma.

Vearey, in his affidavit, said the statement was somehow leaked to a national Sunday news publication.

This, he said, caused “a political storm” and seemed to validate the false idea that he was involved in factional politics.

Vearey and Jacobs believe they were suddenly transferred as they were incorrectly viewed as siding with a particular political faction.

Their transfers, they said in affidavits, jeopardised critical investigations they were conducting.

[source: news24]
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