Madlanga inquiry: police and intelligence accused of collusion
By the AFREEQUE newsroom, based on Daily Maverick
Acting head of the National Intelligence Coordinating Committee, Ntandazo Sifolo, testified on 12 November before the Madlanga Commission, saying South Africa had nearly been captured. According to the Daily Maverick, his allegations also target the Inspectorate of Intelligence, the police and the anti-corruption directorate of the National Prosecuting Authority.
Ntandazo Sifolo, acting director of the National Intelligence Coordinating Committee (Nicoc), testified on Thursday 12 November before the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry in Pretoria. He summed up the situation thus: "if we do nothing now, the country is lost", according to the Daily Maverick. His testimony reinforces allegations of a broad collusion between actors inside and outside the State, aimed at paralysing criminal justice.
According to Sifolo, the expression "infiltration of the criminal justice system" was coined within Nicoc. Information about this infiltration was previously presented to intelligence structures in a fragmented way. In February 2025, Nicoc streamlined the clean-up of the judicial system and took control of the GCI-OPS team, a Gauteng counter-espionage unit tasked with highly sensitive investigations, of the kind corrupt individuals would want to see fail.
The affair became public on 6 July 2025, during an unprecedented press conference by KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi. He had warned that a cartel, later dubbed the "Big Five", had infiltrated the criminal justice system, politics and the private sector. The allegations of misconduct now target the Inspectorate General of Intelligence (IGI), responsible for overseeing the services, the South African Police Service (SAPS) and certain senior officers, the police intelligence unit Crime Intelligence, as well as the Investigating Directorate Against Corruption (Idac), attached to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).
This testimony follows the alerts on mafia networks issued by South African intelligence. Intelligence has also claimed to have prevented a mafia takeover.
