Thanks to the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry into Police Corruption, South Africans have entered a new era of Reality TV.
It dramatically came to our screens last week with the neat segways from Police Commissioner General Fanie Masemola testifying before MP’s in Parliament to a simultaneous military style search and seizure at the home of his deputy, Lt General Shadrack Sibiya, and then a crossing to the Midrand palatial property of Tembisa Hospital tenderpreneur Hangwane Maumela showing his three blue Lamborghini’s being confiscated by the Asset Forfeiture Unit in their search for over R800 million in assets he’s hiding..
Meanwhile, off-camera, former Police Minister Senzo Mchunu’s legal team was fending off the Hawks from searching his property, while his chief of staff Cedrick Nkabinde’s home was also raided.
Reality TV is Exposing SAPS Faultlines in Full Public View
Whether the law enforcement operations were scripted for TV to coincide with Masemola’s appearance before a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry that’s running parallel to Madlanga, is irrelevant as it was great TV anyway.
The sight of DA MP Glynnis Breytenbach, a former state prosecutor, brutally shredding the Police Commissioner and exposing the confusion in who actually calls the shots at SAPS, is there for the historical record.
This on the same day as the National Commissioner all but admitted his powerlessness, his subordinates have grouped into two basic factions that are all but at war with each other.
With the upper hand right now are the supposed ‘good guys’ centred around KZN Police Commissioner Lt Gen Nhlanhla and Crime Intelligence Head Lt Gen Dumisani Khumalo. On the other hand, under siege as it were, are the Deputy Police Commissioner Shadrack Sibiya, Mchunu and his Chief of Staff, Cedrick Nkabinde. Commissioner Masemola, effectively the Minister’s ‘Yes Man’, is the bewildered man in the middle.
Mexicans Are Behind the Big 5 Cartel?
It’s this latter grouping that’s accused of being manipulated by what Crime Intelligence has called the ‘Big Five’ cartel, a Mexican offshore criminal enterprise that is behind the corruption of the security cluster. The General said he could only reveal the names of two of the five syndicate ‘bosses’ as he didn’t want to compromise ongoing investigations.
The two he’s named are tenderpreneur Vusimuzi ‘Cat’ Matlala who is facing attempted murder charges and Sandton businessman and alleged underworld kingpin, Katiso ‘KT’ Molefe, who was released from jail on R400 000 bail on 10 October 2025.
Gen Khumalo told the Madlanga Commission on 22 September 2025 that the two were on the ‘lower levels of the cartel organogram’.
“The main commodity of the cartel in question is illicit drug trafficking – nationally and internationally – which is then coupled with contract killings that are associated with the drug-trafficking process” he said.
“The other commodity is cross-border vehicle hijackings, kidnappings, tender fraud, and also extortions, mainly related to drug-trafficking”.
The Daily Maverick’s Caryn Dolley has uncovered evidence that the Mexican cartels operating in southern Africa are the notorious Sinaloa and Jalisco Cartels, which came into public consciousness through the Netflix series Narcos Mexico. Her report below, published in the Daily Maverick on 6 October 2025 is a must-read for anyone wanting to understand how the Mexican underworld has established itself in the region and details of its operations.
The Daily Maverick has established that activities tied to Mexico’s notorious Sinaloa Cartel have been detected in Mozambique, where other trafficking gangs, including from Brazil, operate.
Transnational Networks
In November 2024, Daily Maverick reported on drug crackdowns that pointed to Mexico’s Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels being active in South Africa.
Around that time, a R100-million drug production facility was discovered in Tshwane and a Mexican suspect was arrested.
In July 2024, three individuals from Mexico were among those arrested in Limpopo for allegedly running a large crystal methamphetamine production facility.
The Hawks head at the time, Godfrey Lebeya, said the Mexican suspects “appear to be members” of the Sinaloa Cartel.
Other mass drug production facilities have since been discovered in South Africa.
This situation is concerning and could relate to allegations made at the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry that a drug cartel known as the Big Five — headquartered in Gauteng and with international conduits — had infiltrated politics, law enforcement and private security in South Africa.
Read more: Big Five cartel’s dark web of political ties and criminal operations unveiled by Dumisani Khumalo
Trucks and Trafficking
In terms of potential ties to Mexican cartels, there is new evidence stemming from different provinces in South Africa pointing to this.
A recent interception fits in here.
It happened on the evening of Tuesday, 30 September 2025 in the Western Cape.
Police received information about a truck possibly transporting drugs from Johannesburg to Cape Town. According to sources, trucks are often used to transport large consignments of drugs between provinces in South Africa.
Western Cape police spokesperson Captain Frederick van Wyk said officers stopped the truck in the vicinity of the Huguenot Tunnel outside Cape Town.
“The members … searched the vehicle and seized 55.8kg tik [crystal methamphetamine] to the street value of R16,367,814 and 30.5kg cocaine to the street value of R3,863,435,” said Van Wyk. A suspect was arrested.
The Western Cape police provided photographs of the seized drugs, some of which were bricks of cocaine with packaging that bore the word “Tesla”.
Daily Maverick recently reported that cocaine intercepted a few years ago in Durban had logos on it, including the Jaguar brand, and that the image of a jaguar had been used on cocaine packages by a now-jailed Sinaloa Cartel member to show his ownership.
As for the Tesla logo, it has been seen on cocaine packages intercepted elsewhere, including in Mexico.
An example involves a crackdown there in July 2022, when around 600kg of cocaine was discovered in two tractor-trailers in Mexico City.
Four suspects, allegedly involved in a criminal group that operated in areas including Sinaloa, were arrested.
Mexican media reported that the cocaine was from Colombia, was destined for the US and had probably been trafficked via the Sinaloa Cartel.
Photographs of that interception showed cocaine bricks with the Prada logo and the Tesla logo, similar to the packaging of the cocaine that was part of the R20-million drug consignment recently intercepted in the Western Cape.
Multimillion-rand ‘Secret Laboratory’
About a week before that Western Cape bust, on 22 September 2025, Hawks spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Magonseni Nkosi said a “multimillion[-rand] clandestine laboratory” was discovered outside Volksrust in Mpumalanga after the police were tipped off about an “unpleasant smell in the area”.
They discovered crystal methamphetamine as well as chemicals and machinery believed to be used to manufacture drugs.
Six suspects were present at the facility and arrested. Five were from Mexico and one was from South Africa.
They are: Isabel Antonio Quintero Corrales (36), Hector Manuel Valenzuela Ontiveros (36), Luis Alberto Osorio Viscarra (31), Jose Omar Molina Jimenez (36), Nicanor Molina Jimenez (48), and Bafana Samson Magubane (61), who is from South Africa.
Read more: Panama drug bust provides more clues tying South Africa to Mexican and Colombian cartels
“The five Mexicans were in possession of their travelling documents, which are questionable. The Department of Home Affairs will be brought on board for further investigation,” said Nkosi.
“Magubane was also found in possession of three 9mm live rounds. He could not produce a firearm licence.”
The court case against this group was scheduled to resume on 10 October 2025.
Underground Drugs
Nkosi said that a few months before this, “similar activities were discovered in Standerton, less than 100km from Volksrust, where another clandestine laboratory with equipment, chemicals and final products to the value of more than R50-million was recovered”.
In May this year, the police announced that an underground drug manufacturing facility had been found at Rooikoppen in Standerton. An entrance to it was hidden under a shipping container.
“Machinery believed to be used in the illegal manufacturing of drugs, drums, and plastic containers filled with substances were recovered,” said Nkosi.
In April this year, another illegal drug-making facility was found in Standerton.
Mozambican Connection
Four suspects from Mozambique were arrested.
That operation led police to a farm that officers discovered was housing “a clandestine drug laboratory”.
A Mozambican couple, the parents of the suspects previously arrested, were taken into custody.
Various drug trafficking groups operate in and via Mozambique.
This includes traffickers from Brazil, from where cocaine is also transported into South Africa.
Earlier this year, authorities in Brazil announced that it was suspected that the Sinaloa Cartel was mailing drug consignments to Brazil.
Daily Maverick has established that Sinaloa Cartel activity has also been detected in Mozambique.
Read more: From South Africa to Sinaloa: Jackie Selebi and the ‘parallel’ US drug trial of Mexico’s ex-cop boss
A US government document, the International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, from March 2025, said there was an ongoing investigation by Mozambique’s National Criminal Investigation Service “into Sinaloa Cartel activity” there.
The investigation, the report said, “led to the discovery of two methamphetamine labs in remote areas near the town of Moamba, near the border with South Africa”. (These appear to be similar to the illicit drug production facilities discovered in this country.)
The report added that Mozambican investigators had “seized 75kg of finished methamphetamine and are searching for Mexican nationals they believe were working at the labs”.
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