Hawks swoop to rack up fraud arrests and convictions, says Godfrey Lebeya

Hawks boss Lt-Gen Godfrey Lebeya says the police unit made 827 arrests and 217 people were convicted of various crimes between July and September this year.  

He said the majority of arrests emanated from the serious organised crime investigation unit, with 524 arrests and 128 suspects convicted and sentenced.

“The serious commercial crime investigation component followed with 206 arrests, while serious corruption investigation secured a total of 97 arrests which makes up our quarterly total of 827 of the arrests on national priority offences,” Lebeya said on Tuesday.

He was briefing the media on the Hawks' successes, and announced the November 1 appointment of the unit's deputy national head Lt-Gen Siphesihle Nkosi.

Lebeya said fraud cases, which are investigated by the Hawks' serious commercial crime investigation team, recorded the highest number of arrests — “222 across all provinces” — followed by illegal mining activities at 126 and non-ferrous metal cases (including copper theft, railway line and other essential infrastructure theft) with 97 arrests.

“The serious commercial crime component followed with 74 convictions, while serious corruption had 15 suspects convicted and sentenced for the period under review,” he said.

Lebeya said Nkosi, seven senior managers and 244 members ranging from junior to middle management had recently been appointed as part of the Hawks' drive to fully capacitate its ranks.

He said the Hawks has increased its workforce to 52% from the previous financial year. “This is an improvement. There are 290 posts we are filling. After this we will be looking for about 1,500 more officials, the figure is not exact.”

He said the Hawks had noted that corruption continues to be one of the biggest threats posed by criminals in the country.

Though the number of arrests is the lowest from the serious corruption investigation component, he said, it is in line with the number of cases and resources assigned to deal with the phenomenon.

“A number of other corruption cases are also appearing in the figures of serious commercial crime investigation.

“We have made some strides and some of the cases that required a high level of meticulous investigation carried out by our team of investigators in rooting out these corrupt elements are mentioned here.”

One case is related to the theft of funds set aside for the Winnie Madikizela-Mandela Brandfort House Museum. Service providers were appointed without following proper procurement processes, leading to a loss of more than R700,000 to the department of sports, arts & culture.

After an intensive investigation by the Hawks in the Free State, seven suspects were arrested, Lebeya said. They are charged with fraud, theft and contravention of the Municipal Finance Management Act.

“The case is postponed to December 7 2022 at Welkom magistrate's court.”

The Hawks arrested 20 suspects and secured convictions on two cases relating to police killings during the second quarter, Lebeya said.

He added that the Hawks, through a successful asset forfeiture investigation and in collaboration with the Asset Forfeiture Unit, had secured:

• three restraint orders to the value of R41.8m;
• 30 preservation matters to the value of R70.3m;
• eight confiscation orders to the value of R9.2m; and
• 20 forfeiture orders to the value of R16.1m.

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