Paul O’Sullivan’s ultimatum to Masemola as top cops go down in corruption crack-down
Forensics for Justice founder Paul O’Sullivan has made it his mission to go after corrupt cops. In this interview with BizNews, he speaks about the ultimatum he has issued to Police Chief Fannie Masemola to suspend all the top cops arrested and charged last week by today or face an urgent High Court case. He also wants the Commissioner gone. “I’ve made it clear to Masemola…that I'm going for him. I want him out. I want him gone.” Speaking in the wake of the arrests of Crime Intelligence (CI) boss General Dumisane Khumalo and other top cops, O’Sullivan describes how the criminal justice system has been infiltrated by the underworld - and how it is being “played” by dirty cops and dirty lawyers. Meanwhile, O’Sullivan has spent at least R15-million of his own money on exposing dirty cops. He has had a hand in the downfall of two commissioners of police, one head of The Hawks, 15 generals and 17 brigadiers over the past 20 years. “…if you're a dirty cop and you're out there, my warning to you is watch this space because if you're a dirty cop and you're out there, we're coming for you.”
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Edited transcript of the interview
Chris Steyn (00:01.742)
Forensics for Justice founder Paul O’Sullivan has made it his mission to go after corrupt cops. Welcome Paul. Tell us how many cops have you exposed and had removed from office or prosecuted?
Paul O'Sullivan (00:20.145)
I think in the last, shall we say, 20 years, there have been two commissioners of police, one head of Hawks, 12 generals, and 15 brigadiers.
But I can't say I was personally involved in everything that happened last week, but I was certainly gunning for those people, too.
And if I add those five generals and two brigadiers into the mix, it's now 15 generals and 17 brigadiers. And a whole host, I don't keep count of all the colonels, lieutenant colonels, majors, captains, and all the rest of it.
But I just want to make it clear also, it's not that I'm gunning after these cops. It's just that if I don't do it and nobody does it, we have a broken criminal justice system. And then what? If the rule of law doesn't exist, this country's finished. And we're already having a lot of problems, major problems.
I've been involved in policing in this country since the late 80s now, and I left the police in, I think it was 2001, and it was Jackie Selebi that forced me to leave the police. He booted me out. So that was a mistake on his side because after that I went for him.
Paul O'Sullivan (02:09.321)
And then I went for all the people that protected him and tried to shield him from the criminal justice system.
And then I decided probably around about 2015 or so, okay, or 2013 or so, something like that. I thought, okay, you know what, I've done enough now. But then another dirty cop popped his head onto my radar screen and I don't know, something just got the better of me and I decided to go for him too. And up to now, I just haven't been able to stop. So I keep at it. And I think I'll probably keep at it until I'm not able to do it any longer.
And the best part about it is I don't get paid a cent for any of this. In fact, it costs me money. I'm just going to close the email because...with emails open, we're to get that little dinging noise. Okay. So, I don't get paid a cent. Nobody pays me for all this work. And as I made the point, it actually cost me money. It cost me quite a significant amount of money. I said, what is it now, 20, in the last 15 years, I've easily spent 15 million rand of my own money in this fight or this crusade, as some people call it.
But I've always maintained my ethics in what I'm doing. I've never done it in a way that is unethical. If I played the game the same way they play it, or they've tried to play it, I mean, they've tried to have me murdered. Dirty Cops suggested to, I think it was in 2016, suggested to Radovan Krejcir the only way he could possibly be released from prison was if he first can arrange to have me murdered. And we know this for a fact, we've got all the evidence because a cellmate of his said, I can get people to do that for you. And that cellmate of his hired somebody who stood in a taxi rank in Pretoria looking for bad guys and he had a photograph of me and details of my address….
Paul O'Sullivan (04:31.765)
…and my car registration number. I managed to get information as to who that guy was, and we went for it. And I think Radovan Krejcir sent people to my house to attempt to kill me, and I was waiting for them. They were arrested. So, at the end of the day, I've played the game clean, and I continue to play the game clean. But of course, I make no bones about the fact that if somebody does come to kill me, I will actually...defend myself and I'm trained to do that. But it is what it is.
And the reality of situation is if we can't have a criminal justice system in South Africa which works, there's no future in the country because people will be able to commit crimes.
Even now, the clear up rate of serious crime is inadequate. It's not good. So we end up with a situation where if you want to be a serial killer, you must stop murdering when you reach 11, because only one in 11 murders results in an arrest. Now, that surely can't be right. That's something like you might see in Mexico. I think probably in countries where there's no rule of law, in some ways, they have better clear-up rates than we have. So if we turn the clock back 20 years or 25 years, the clear-up rate of murders was far better then than it is today. Now, that has to be fixed. But it will never be fixed when you have a Chief of Police who goes on an overseas visit…
Paul O'Sullivan (06:36.127)
…and is supplied with a Louis Vuitton bag for his wife and brings that bag back to the country, smuggled it through customs without paying any import duty because it should have been declared at customs, and then hands it to his wife. It's effectively a bribe from a police supplier.
And then when I analysed the same person's lifestyle three years ago, actually three years and three months ago, his monthly take-home pay after all of his stoppages and everything and deductions and tax and whatnot, and he was paying back something to the police, which I never got to the bottom of, but his total take-home pay was 58,000 Rand per month. But his expenses on the credit lines that he had running were 68,000 Rand per month, which means he had to find another 10,000 Rand every month. And that's before he had anything to eat or paid for his utilities at his house, which means he was living beyond his means. So therefore he was clearly not fit and proper person to be the chief of police, and yet he was appointed. And what we need to do now, by the way, he's past retirement age already and he's still in the job.
What we really need now is we need younger blood, blood that's been proven to be ethical. And if there's clouds hanging over that person, he shouldn't be appointed. And when I say clouds hanging over that person, we've got this situation with these people from Crime Intelligence. Now, it's very interesting game they play.
So what they do is they work out for themselves who they would like to see…
Paul O'Sullivan (08:39.47)
…as a Chief of Police. They want somebody that's going to be flexible, somebody that will allow them to continue doing what they've been doing, which is to steal taxpayers' money left, right and centre. So what they do is they work out who they would like to see to be the Chief of Police. And then they look at the people that may be competing against that person. And what they do is they fabricate stories about those people. They blacken their name in such a fashion that the decision makers about who should be the Chief of Police are now left thinking, wow, you know, can we risk appointing that person who's alleged to have done this and done that, but there's no evidence. So what they're actually doing is they're clearing the way for a criminal and they're using taxpayers' funds to create these fake clouds over ethical cops - and thereby leave the coast clear for the dirty cops to become chief of police. And that's what happened before, and it's going to happen again now.
Chris Steyn (09:52.526)
Let us go to the latest wave of arrests, including the head of crime intelligence, General Dumisani Khumalo, four generals and two or three brigadiers. Could you name them for us, please?
Paul O'Sullivan (10:06.093)
Sorry, I didn't catch the question.
Chris Steyn (10:09.046)
…the latest wave of arrests for, including the Head of Crime Intelligence General…
Paul O'Sullivan (10:13.613)
It's five generals and two brigadiers. It's Khumalo, it's Madondo. I don't have the list in front of me now. It's Khumalo, Madondo, Lushaba. He was arrested before. This is the guy that hired a prostitute and took her home to a safe house, I believe, because his wife wouldn't have allowed him to bring the woman home to their house…and she stuck a Mickey Finn into his drink, and after he passed out, she took his laptop and his firearm and she buggered off. And then instead of opening a criminal docket where he admits that he'd hired a prostitute, he lied under oath. This is now Lushaba that I'm talking about. And then what he did, he briefed two other cops to go find that woman and get his weapon and his firearm, not his weapon, get his firearm and his laptop back. And that's what they did. And unfortunately, in all that whole process, they committed offenses.
And then, of course, we had the 29-year-old brigadier…whe got married to a guy that she worked with at the University of Tshwane, or Tshwane Technical University, whatever it's called. And her father was arrested, I think, last year for attempting to buy a docket in the KZN region concerning one of these political killings because they wanted to get somebody off the hook. And I think the Sunday Times said yesterday that his daughter being given this beautiful appointment as a brigadier in the police with no previous policing skills whatsoever. None. Zero. No firearm training. No firearm was registered to her. You can't be appointed in the police if you have no firearm training….
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Paul O'Sullivan (12:36.461)
…and a whole lot of other issues, but 29 years old. Made history. She was the youngest brigadier in the police, ever. Forget about whether she's male or female or whatever, but you can't make brigadier...like that. It's just not done. And therefore, her appointment was unlawful.
And I think the Sunday Times said that it was a reward for her father, who's been suspended. And what happened to that trial? So what happens? People get suspended. They're supposed to go on trial. And then the public, nothing, no action is seen for a year or so. And then the public quietly forget about it because it's just not, it’s not in their sight. It's not on their radar screen.
So what has to happen? There needs to be some kind of a report back to the people of this country about all these cops, and most of them generals or brigadiers.
And what is actually going on? It's no good. It's no good to arrest them, suspend them, start a trial, and then they play the Zuma strategy. A lot of people call it the Stalingrad Strategy. Well, the Stalingrad Strategy was so named because it delayed the Germans by 18 months. The Zuma Strategy delayed the criminal justice system by more than 10 years. And we now have a situation where the criminal justice system is ineffective not only because of corrupt cops, but because there are lawyers out there prepared to be paid with the proceeds of crime to run the Zuma Strategy or the Stalingrad strategy and delay, delay, delay, delay, delay.
And part of that problem is we have a bail system where people are released on bail. They've committed serious offences and yet they're released on bail and then they use the proceeds of crime.
Paul O'Sullivan (14:49.697)
And in the case of these cops, the proceeds of crime is taxpayers' money. So they've stolen taxpayers' money. Now they're using that stolen funds to pay lawyers. And the lawyers' function in life is to get them off the hook. And the best way to get them off the hook is to drag it out for years and years and years and years and years. And then to claim that the State are dragging it out and have them at their struck from the roll. They're playing dirty games, all of them.
And what we need to start doing is having no bail. If you commit the Schedule 5 offence, there's presumption against bail. The State needs to start opposing bail. A man can go out and commit murder and be released on 10,000-ran bail. That's unacceptable.
And here's something, and it's a truth. A poor lady with three children and no...husband bringing in money and she's unemployed. She can go to Checkers and steal a loaf of bread and get caught. And she has no money to pay bail. So she sits behind bars until her trial. Now, who's getting justice here? The more you steal, the more likely you are to have bail. The more corrupt you are, the more likely you are to have bail.
And that's not the way the criminal justice system should work. We have to put our foot down. If a policeman is committing corrupt crimes, he should not be granted bail. He should be sitting behind bars. And then he won't play the Zuma Strategy. He'll want to get the trial done and dusted and out of the way. Instead, these people are going to drag.
Let me tell you something. Two years ago, we had arrested a State Prosecutor, a Senior State Advocate, and a Lieutenant Colonel in the police in the Commercial Crime Unit. And it's a well-published case. What they were doing was taking bribes to throw cases. So if you've got the investigating officer and the prosecutor on a case, receiving money from the person that should be locked up and sent to prison,
Paul O'Sullivan (17:17.077)
…and then they make a decision not to prosecute the case. So, we were able to put evidence together, and in November 2023, both the cop and the prosecutor were arrested and charged. The cop went back to work.
Paul O'Sullivan (17:41.406)
A Lieutenant Colonel is in the Commercial Crime unit in Germiston. He went back to work. The Prosecutor was suspended, and here we are 18 months later. I think he was fired last month or the month before. So it took almost 18 months to fire the prosecutor. The cop hasn't been fired. He was suspended for six weeks, and now he's back at work and what's he doing today? He's working with another prosecutor and making dockets in the Commercial Crime arena collapse.
So the criminal justice system has been infiltrated by the underworld and what's needed now is a clean-up. And the only way to clean it up is to look at all the appointments that have taken place by people like Selebi. By the way, Selebi appointed a whole host of criminals and they still in the police. There was never a clean up done after Selebi.
Phalane did exactly the same. He's a criminal himself. He appointed a whole lot of criminals. He wanted to be surrounded by criminals. Well, he should be surrounded by criminals. He should be in prison. He was arrested in 2018. That's seven years ago. His trial hasn't started yet.
And guess what? The taxpayer is paying his lawyers. What the hell is going on in South Africa? And by the way, all the people that are accused within the so-called Blue Lights corruption scandal, a fellow by the name of Manthata. Manthata bribed not only Phalane, but some other generals as well.
The plan was that all the police cars are fitted with what they call light bars, which is the blue lights that sit on top of the car, and they have sirens in underneath the bonnet. And this guy was charging, I don't know what the figure is, so I'm just using the figure as an example. It cost 10,000 Rand to fit out a car. He was charging 30,000 Rand. And there was nobody...
Paul O'Sullivan (20:03.199)
…nobody else competing, was no competitive tenders. And this went on for years. And all these people received bribes.
And then what happens? After this guy gets arrested, after Phalane and the other generals and whatnot get arrested, Manthata moves millions of Rand, hundreds of millions of Rand in cash to his girlfriend's account. And that money is then paid out to dirty lawyers. When I say dirty lawyers, they're dirty because they know they're being paid with the proceeds of crime. And then these lawyers are now doing everything they can to stymie that case against these dirty cops. You know, the State, what can they do? They have their resources are one prosecutor, one investigating officer, and they're up against teams of lawyers and the lawyers sit and plot before every time they appear in court what else they can do to drag the matter out further. And that's what they've been doing now for seven years. So they drag the case out and this guy hasn't seen a day behind bars yet. Why not? Because the the criminal justice system has been infiltrated by the underworld; that’s the problem we have.
Chris Steyn (21:29.368)
Paul, meanwhile more arrests of senior SAPS officials are expected. Do you have any inside info on who that might be?
Paul O'Sullivan (21:42.181)
No, I don't think it's appropriate to discuss what heads are going to fall before they fall. But if you're a dirty cop and you're out there, my warning to you is watch this space because if you're a dirty cop and you're out there, we're coming for you.
By the way, I spoke a short while ago about this fellow, Manthata, who's running this company that installs the the sirens and the light bars and the cars. For several years he had a sergeant in the police acting as his bodyguard. Now, all that was going on while Phalane was the Chief of Police or the Acting Chief of Police. And this sergeant had a police car. So that particular sergeant, instead of going out preventing crime, was a bag man for a corrupt supplier to the police. Every time that supplier to the police had to distribute cash, he would give a checque to this sergeant. The sergeant would take a cash cheque, take the cash cheque down the bank, draw the cash, bring it back, and then they separate it into bundles and he would go around in his police car and hand out that money to the corrupt generals and brigadiers that were on the payroll of Manthata. And this guy is charged along with Manthata and Phalane and all the other people involved as part of the Blue Light corruption trial, the trial that hasn't yet started. And this sergeant is still on the payroll of the police.
Paul O'Sullivan (23:36.0)
You and I and all the other taxpayers are still paying him. And here's the best part. He's not working at the police at all. He's still working for this corrupt police supplier. He's still his bodyguard today. So this guy has a policeman who's on the taxpayers payroll acting as his bodyguard. And yet nothing is being done about it. So all these things have to be fixed.
There's so much broken that has to be fixed. The good news is there are some really good people out there. I work with tremendous cops, fabulous cops, cops that are ethical and want to get the job done.
So the minority portion, unfortunately, these corrupt generals and these corrupt brigadiers, they're the ones that need to be targeted and got rid of. If we can't send them to prison, we should at least put them out of the police service.
And I've made it clear to Masemola, the current Chief of Police, that I'm going for him. I want him out. I want him gone. Because if your leader in the police is a corrupt person, you can't expect to have the people under him respecting him unless they are corrupt themselves as well. And then it's all about who is what.
So I'm really keen to see Masemola gone. I gave him an ultimatum on Thursday. I gave him until today to suspend all the people that were arrested and charged last Thursday. There's seven of them. And I've told him if he doesn't suspend them, I'm going to appoint attorneys to build a case and go to the High Court on an urgent basis to have all those people suspended. I do understand it's part of their bail condition that they may not enter the offices of Crime Intelligence. Well, that's a bail condition. It means they can still do their work. And when I say their work, their work has never been Crime Intelligence. Their work has been how to rig the system to put more money in their pockets. They're not really interested in performing a Crime Intelligence function.
Paul O'Sullivan (26:02.785)
So we need to clean up Crime Intelligence. We need to appoint new blood into Crime Intelligence.
From the bottom up, we need blood that's clean. And if people are involved in their own private companies and they've got their other sources of income, they're not fit to be senior officials in the police. End of story.
Chris Steyn (26:26.552)
Thank you. That was Paul O’Sullivan, the Founder for Forensics for Justice, speaking to BizNews. And I'm Chris Steyn. Thank you, Paul.