Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) spokesman Moses Dlamini told the publication that they had received reports that Tshabalala had poisoned himself.

“We have sent investigators to Kgosi Mampuru prison to establish the facts."

The publication has learnt from sources that the parole committee for Tshabalala was sitting on Friday.

"His parole was revoked and he is now a sentenced prisoner. After learning the news he has now gone and poisoned himself‚” said a source. "He is in a critical condition in the prison hospital. It is suspected that this may be part of his plan to escape from custody."

Tshabalala‚ who was stationed with the covert crime intelligence unit‚ was arrested in January by IPID officials as he reported to his parole officers in Pretoria.

His January arrest was connection with allegedly defrauding a South African Police Service slush fund out of R563‚ 000. The fund is meant for operational purposes. He was accused of using fraudulent invoices to claim money to install blinds in safe houses in two plush Pretoria suburbs‚ Waterkloof Heights and Brooklyn.

Tshabalala was on parole after being released in 2015 from the Groenpunt Maximum Security Prison‚ where he was serving a 10-year sentence for armed robbery which he committed in Pretoria's Mamelodi township in 1994.

But‚ after losing his appeal in 1996‚ did not surrender himself to prison officials‚ avoided prison and somehow managed to join the police crime intelligence unit.

He was eventually imprisoned after his arrest for a cash-in-transit heist in 2013‚ a crime he was later acquitted of‚ and rejoined the police covert crime intelligence unit.