'Gifts' from a lover and 'botched' cocaine raids: Police inquiry grips South Africa

Just nowKhanyisile NgcoboJohannesburgGallo Images via Getty ImagesBrig Rachel Matjeng oversaw a tender awarded in 2024 to controversial businessman Vusimuzi "Cat" MatlalaAn investigation into alleged police corruption in South Africa has had the nation captivated - much like the second season of a successful Netflix crime drama.The "second season" of this inquiry has just wrapped up - with another interim report on the proceedings handed over to President Cyril Ramaphosa on Friday.Like the first interim report from the Madlanga Commission, it was not made public, though the contents are likely to be fairly explosive - if the public hearings are anything to go by.Before the third and final phase gets under way next month - aka "season three" - here are some eye-catching moments from the last 64 days of hearings that saw 32 witnesses testifying.Brazilian butt lift denialIn February, senior police officer Brig Rachel Matjeng appeared before the commission, which is named after retired Constitutional Court Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga who is heading the inquiry.She was there as she had overseen a tender awarded in 2024 to controversial businessman Vusimuzi "Cat" Matlala's company Medicare24 Tshwane District, which was meant to provide health services to the police.The contract was cancelled a year later and since then a dozen senior police officers, including Matjeng, have been formally charged over their role in awarding the contract. None of them have yet been asked to plead in court.In her testimony to the commission, Matjeng denied receiving kickbacks from Matlala - and instead alleged that the pair were in an on-off romantic relationship that lasted until his arrest last year and that he had lavished her with gifts.One of these presents were shots of the weight-loss drug Ozempic, which she had asked her "boyfriend" to source for her.Matjeng said she had not been bribed with a Brazilian butt lift (BBL), as had been alleged online, telling the commission: "So, for me, from my boyfriend [Matlala], I only ask for Ozempic, unlike those that ask for BBL (sic)".Matlala himself has yet to appear before the commission.He was named in testimony last year from the police crime intelligence boss as one of the main figures in an alleged drug-trafficking and crime cartel, known as the Big Five, that allegedly also carried out contract killings, cross-border hijackings and kidnappings.Matlala is currently in custody facing 25 criminal charges, among them attempted murder. He has denied all the charges against him.It is believed that he will make a much-anticipated appearance - to respond to allegations made against him - during the final leg of the commission's hearings.Drug heist allegationsAnother key focus of the Madlanga Commission has been the handling of two major drug operations that occurred just a month apart in 2021.One was in the south of the port city of Durban in June that year and another occurred in Johannesburg a month later.In the first, police intercepted 541kg of cocaine, hidden in a shipping container carrying animal bone meal, worth more than 200m rand ($12m; £9m). Five months later the confiscated drugs were stolen from a poorly secured building owned by the police's elite unit, the Hawks, in what was believed to be an inside job.Senior Hawks official Maj-Gen Hendrik Flynn detailed to the inquiry a series of missteps by officers in the lead-up to the theft.These included a failure to collect DNA or fingerprint samples from the scene and the decision to store the drugs at a building that lacked proper security despite the availability of safer ones closer to police locations."I am of the view that it is no coincidence and that the sequence of events is indeed... by design," Flynn said.Gallo Images via Getty ImagesMbuyiseli Madlanga, who is leading the inquiry, called one of the officers at the scene of a cocaine seizure "clueless"Another senior Hawks official, Lt Col Nkoana Sebola, told the commission that circumstances a