{"id":4382,"date":"2016-01-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-01-14T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amabhungane.org\/amabhungane\/stories\/ssa-haul-raises-security-concerns\/"},"modified":"2016-01-14T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-01-14T00:00:00","slug":"ssa-haul-raises-security-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/ssa-haul-raises-security-concerns\/","title":{"rendered":"SSA haul raises security concerns"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of two State Security Agency (SSA) officers arrested on charges linked to the theft of R17-million from the agency\u2019s Pretoria headquarters is the close protection officer of Batandwa Siswana, who heads the agency\u2019s foreign branch.<\/p>\n

Before President Jacob Zuma appointed Siswana to the agency in 2013, he was the accounting officer in the presidency and the deputy secretary of the Cabinet.<\/p>\n

Suspect William Nyaku Mmotong (39) was previously identified, apparently mistakenly, as the driver and protection officer for the agency\u2019s director general, Sonto Kudjoe. But SSA spokesperson Brian Dube told amaBhungane this week that the arrested man was Siswana\u2019s, not Kudjoe\u2019s, protector.<\/p>\n

Dube would not be drawn on questions over the possibility of a serious blunder in internal security vetting procedures, given Mmotong\u2019s close proximity to one of the SSA\u2019s most senior officials.<\/p>\n

Mmotong and his alleged accomplice, 48-year-old Khayalethu Mgatyelwa, have both appeared in court briefly on charges linked to the brazen Christmas-period theft. They are to appear again next week.<\/p>\n

Hawks spokesperson Brig\u00adadier Hangwani Mulaudzi this week said the crime was carried out \u201cbetween the night of 26 and 27 December 2015\u201d in a \u201cwell-organised fashion\u201d.<\/p>\n

According to reports, the stolen cash included several currencies used to pay informants and to fund overseas intelligence operations.<\/p>\n

”\u00a0…\u00a0k<\/em><\/strong>new exactly where and how to gain entrance into the building \u2026 and the safe location”<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n


\nBatandwa Siswana<\/em><\/p>\n

Mulaudzi said in an email the suspects \u201cknew exactly where and how to gain entrance into the building \u2026 and the safe location. Their entrance and escape routes were at the backyard of the SSA premises, a quiet place. They cut the fence and used routes where it was probably difficult to be captured by the CCTV cameras. They were [in] the group of six men when captured by CCTV camera inside the crime scene [cash office] wearing balaclavas.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Hawks arrested Mgatyelwa and Mmotong earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Mulaudzi said police were notified of the theft by \u201cone of the SSA employees who is the complainant in the case\u201d, and the police were still searching for four possible suspects who are not employees of the SSA.<\/p>\n

Mgatyelwa, a security guard based at the SSA\u2019s Musanda complex in Rietvlei, appears to have been employed by the then National Intelligence Agency (NIA), now the SSA\u2019s domestic branch, from 2005, and Mmotong appears to have been employed by the then South African Secret Service (SASS), now the foreign branch, since about 2009.<\/p>\n

Although little is still known about the two accused, information published in December 2006 in the Government Gazette shows that Mgatyelwa applied for financial rehabilitation in terms of the Insolvency Act.<\/p>\n

The SASS and NIA were amalgamated in 2009 to form the SSA, which followed a review of \u201ccivilian intelligence community\u201d structures whose aim was to develop \u201ca more effective and efficient intelligence architecture\u201d.<\/p>\n

Despite this, the intelligence community continues to be plagued by scandal. On Sunday,\u00a0 City Press<\/em> reported<\/a> that, around the time of the SSA theft, at least 50 new computers were stolen \u201cin batches\u201d from defence intelligence\u2019s headquarters, also in Pretoria.<\/p>\n

* A previous version of this story misspelled the name Musanda. We apologise for the error, and have rectified it.<\/em><\/p>\n

* Got a tip-off for us about this story? Click here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a>The M&G<\/em> Centre for Investigative Journalism (amaBhungane) produced this story. All views are ours. See www.amabhungane.co.za <\/a> for our stories, activities and funding sources.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The arrest of two intel agency staffers for the R17m theft points to a well-planned inside job.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22703,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}