Hawks head General Godfrey Lebeya says more than 40 statements have been obtained in relation to the robbery at President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala farm.
The former State Security head, Arthur Fraser, laid a criminal complaint against the President a few months ago, alleging that Ramaphosa had attempted to cover up the theft.
The complaint relates to the alleged theft of large amounts of US currency from the farm in Lephalale, Limpopo, in 2020.
Addressing the media in Pretoria on Tuesday, Lebeya says, “The question is whether we are investigating. Indeed the complainant did make a statement. And so far we’ve filed 41 statements in the docket. So I will not deal with the contents or merits of whose statement is filed in the docket. But rest assured that 41 statements is more than what the complainant shall have filed.”
22 000 cases
Lebeya says the Hawks are currently handling about 22 000 cases of more than half a million charges with a monetary value of more than R1.5 trillion.
He says these cases involve approximately 23 000 suspects of which 12 360 have already been secured at court while 11 159 are still pending.
Lebeya says of the cases under investigation, close to 2 000 have reached the decision stage.
He says, “Over the period between 2018/2019 and 2021/2022 financial years, the DPCI arrested a total of 12 157 suspects that were brought before the courts of law over these four years. In the same period, a total of 4 447 convictions were secured across the country. Let me hasten to mention that the convictions relate to individuals as the charges/counts are much higher.”
“To cite two examples: in 2019, the convictions relating to Serious Commercial Crime Investigation Component alone was 37 597 counts. In Cape Town Central CAS 1279/10/2016, the two natural persons and five juristic persons were convicted on 487 counts of fraud and money laundering of Value Added Tax (VAT) to the value of R110 million, and R440 million potential loss. The natural persons were on 21 February 2020, sentenced to 17 years and 16 years imprisonment respectively,” adds Lebeya.
VIDEO: Hawks host a media briefing on some of its prominent cases:
