Organised crime is in the news again, this time in relation to the astounding allegations, made on 6 July 2025 by KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, that South Africa’s criminal justice system was compromised because of the infiltration of criminal syndicates into police, judicial, parliamentary, political, intelligence, and law enforcement structures.
As a result of these alarming allegations, President Cyril Ramaphosa established the Commission of Inquiry into Criminality, Political Interference, and Corruption in the Criminal Justice System – informally known as the Madlanga Commission after its chairperson, retired acting Deputy Chief Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga – to investigate and report on the veracity, scope, and extent of the allegations.
A separate parliamentary investigation is happening at the same time into the same topic, though with a narrower scope – where the commission will look broadly at all components of the criminal justice system and the influence of criminal syndicates on key institutions thereof, the parliamentary ad hoc committee will look mainly at Mkhwanazi’s allegations, with a view to identifying where oversight has failed and whether there is a need for reform.
Mkhwanazi’s allegations were backed up by Crime Intelligence boss Lieutenant-General Dumisani Khumalo who, during his appearance at the commission two weeks ago, revealed the existence of a cartel of organised crime syndicates that have infiltrated the South African Police Service by developing relationships with some within its leadership in return for protection as they engage in major criminal operations. He referred to this cartel as the Big Five, and said it is based in Gauteng.
The Big Five’s main business is drugs, said Khumalo, but it is also associated with contract killings, cross-border movement of stolen vehicles, kidnappings, tender fraud, and extortion related mainly to drug trafficking. Khumalo named controversial businessmen Vusimusi ‘Cat’ Matlala and Katiso Molefe as two of the Big Five but would not name the others.
Of course, it’s not just the kingpins and syndicates – behind the scenes, a big network of professional enablers is working hard to facilitate all these illegal activities. They include lawyers, accountants, logistics firms, security providers, and real estate companies, all ensuring the continued smooth operation of the criminal organisations that pay them.
South Africans are justifiably scared and anxious about the apparent ongoing evolution of South Africa into a country run by mafias and cartels – but in a new report authored by South African attorney and crime analyst Raphael Mackintosh, the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) proposes legislative amendments to fortify the country’s laws against the enablers, which will in turn throw significant obstacles in the way of cartels and syndicates.
Legislative gap
“While the Prevention of Organised Crime Act 121 of 1998 (POCA) was designed to dismantle the core ranks at the centre of criminal entities,” says Mackintosh, “its current offences fall short of reaching these shadowy facilitators. Enablers never join a criminal group or intentionally facilitate specific crimes; instead, they profit from and empower the broader criminal ecosystem by deliberately distancing themselves from its inner workings.”
They turn blind eyes to the criminal plans they enable, says the organisation, choosing profit over principle and supplying communications, premises, or expertise that materially strengthen criminal groups, but do not require them to directly participate in crimes or handle tainted property.
This is one of the reasons organised crime has become entrenched in South Africa, as this glaring gap in POCA’s structure exposes vulnerabilities that criminals have quickly taken advantage of.
“A landlord who knowingly leases and outfits a warehouse for an abalone syndicate operates beyond POCA’s ambit,” Mackintosh says. “So does a telecommunications supplier who provides encrypted communication systems to a drug cartel.”
Prosecutors would struggle to prove criminal intent on the part of these secondary actors, says Mackintosh. “This conceptual mismatch [to POCA’s prescribed offences], compounded by the Act’s onerous evidentiary requirements, permits an indispensable layer of the criminal economy to peddle their wares with virtual impunity.”
Plugging the holes
Mackintosh and GI-TOC conducted a comparative analysis of similar laws in countries such as the UK, Australia, Japan, and the US, to identify relevant legal models that have successfully criminalised the enabling conduct that POCA overlooks.
“The findings from the comparative analysis indicate that many foreign jurisdictions target enablers through specific ‘participation’ or ‘material support’ offences, sometimes anchored to procedures which empower courts formally to declare groups to be ‘criminal organisations’.”
Drawing on these international precedents, he proposes two sets of amendments to POCA:
- Creating new offences against knowingly providing ‘strategic material support’ to criminal organisations. “Support is ‘strategic’ and ‘material’ if it meaningfully upgrades a criminal organisation’s ability to plan, commit or hide serious crimes. It covers specified categories of resources, services, or systems designed or adapted to give criminals an operational edge, but excludes ordinary, open, market-rate transactions and essential services (healthcare, education, legal representation).”
- Introducing a judicial designation mechanism which would permit the state to apply to the court for an order declaring, or ‘designating’, a specific group as a ‘criminal organisation’. “Designation does not criminalise membership in the relevant group and does not, of itself, impose liability on any individual.” What it does do is make it very clear that knowingly providing strategic material support to the designated group may give rise to criminal liability.
Such a designation order, says Mackintosh, would take a significant burden off prosecutors who have to prove, from scratch, in every subsequent prosecution concerning that group, that the group is criminal. “The designation order itself constitutes prima facie proof of that fact unless the accused brings forward evidence to the contrary.”
This solution is elegant, straightforward, and constitutionally sound, the report notes, and the proposed amendments complement rather than replace POCA’s existing regime against offences such as money laundering, gang activity, and racketeering.
“The new provisions rectify a crucial but overlooked gap, striking at those who knowingly supply the means and methods that enhance and sustain criminal organisations while diligently remaining at one remove from the central nervous system of organised criminal activity.”
These proposed reforms, says GI-TOC, establish a promising foundation for “disrupting the complicit networks that render criminal groups both resilient and effective”.
