Retired Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (DPCI) Lieutenant Colonel Jakobus Prinsloo

Retired Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (DPCI) Lieutenant Colonel Jakobus Prinsloo has told the Madlanga commission that Major General Lesetja Senona was aware that the South African Police Service (SAPS) facility in Port Shepstone was vulnerable and unsuitable for storing the 541kg cocaine haul seized at the Durban Harbour in 2021.

“The DPCI office was particularly vulnerable and was not suitable to store the exhibits, let alone the quantity we were asked to store. General Senona knew this,” Prinsloo told the commission on Thursday.

The 541kg of cocaine stolen in Port Shepstone had originally been seized during a police operation at the Durban Harbour. The drugs had a street value of R200 million.

Prinsloo told the commission that he believed the theft of the drugs was a targeted operation rather than a random break-in because the people who cut open the safe knew exactly where to do so.

He said it was not far-fetched to speculate that the people who opened the safe might even have been present when the drugs were delivered.

“They knew exactly which safe the drugs were placed in. From where we entered with the drugs, they would have known which safe they were going into.”

Retired Justice Mbuyiseni Madlanga put it to Prinsloo that if he were to draw up a list of suspects who had stolen the drugs, members of the DPCI would be number one on the list.

Madlanga said he did not discount the possibility that other people outside the DPCI, and possibly outside the SAPS, could have been informed by DPCI or SAPS members that the cocaine was stored in Port Shepstone.

Prinsloo replied that he agreed with Madlanga, saying not all the people who brought the drugs to his office were DPCI members.

He said the SAPS Port Shepstone facility, where the drugs were stolen, had no cameras outside the offices, no alarm system monitoring movement and no security guard at the gate.

During his testimony on Wednesday, Major General Hendrick Flynn, the component head for serious organised crime in the DPCI, told the commission that it was by design and not coincidence that the drugs were stored in Port Shepstone.