By Johnathan Paoli
The Madlanga Commission heard shocking testimony on Monday from a police investigator, known only as Witness A, who drew direct links between the 2024 murder of Q-Tech engineer Armand Swart, police corruption and a multimillion-rand Transnet tender fraud scheme.
Testifying from a secure, undisclosed location with his identity withheld for safety reasons, Witness A traced the investigation into Swart’s killing, a case that has exposed connections between organised crime and law enforcement.
Swart, a 37-year-old engineer and father of two, was gunned down outside his workplace in Vereeniging in April last year, shot 23 times in what police now believe was a case of mistaken identity.
Witness A testified that police believe the whistleblower targeted for execution was another employee at the firm, but that Swart was murdered instead after being mistaken for the intended target.
“Swart was not the whistleblower they were targeting. The hitmen were conducting surveillance around Q-Tech and killed the wrong man,” Witness A told the commission.
The commission heard that Swart’s death followed his company’s discovery of a staggering 4,650% price mark-up in a Transnet Freight Rail tender.
Q-Tech had sold small metal springs for R3.20 each, but through a middleman company, SK Group, they were billed to Transnet at R152 each.
A modest R25,000 deal had become a R1.2 million procurement.
After Q-Tech reported the inflated tender, Swart was assassinated.
Witness A said three men were arrested within hours of the killing: Warrant Officer Michael Pule Tau, a detective based at Johannesburg Central Police Station; Musa Kekana; and Tlego Floyd Mabusela.
The trio was intercepted in Bramley in a Mercedes-Benz Viano, believed to have been used in the murder.
“The cartridges we found were going to be destroyed if we hadn’t made those arrests that same day,” Witness A testified.
He said Tau insisted that the spent cartridges were from his brother’s hunting rifles, a claim investigators later dismissed.
Cellphone records and surveillance data revealed that the alleged mastermind behind the hit was tender businessman Katiso “KT” Molefe.
Witness A said Tau and Molefe exchanged several calls and messages in the days before the killing.
“Five days before Swart’s murder, Tau received a call from Molefe lasting nearly two minutes. Later that day, he drove to Molefe’s house in the same Viano later seized by police,” Witness A testified.
Three days before the murder, Tau texted Molefe asking for the company’s name again, referring to Q-Tech.
Molefe sent the name back, and Tau later forwarded Molefe photographs of two Q-Tech employees, captioned, “This must be them”.
On the morning of the killing, Tau sent Molefe a WhatsApp message that read “Morning abuti re sharp neh”; loosely translated as “Morning brother, we’re okay”.
Witness A said investigators believe the message confirmed the hit had been successfully carried out.
Two of the accused, Kekana and Mabusela, are also charged with the attempted murder of actress and businesswoman Tebogo Thobejane in October 2023.
That alleged hit was reportedly ordered by Molefe’s associate, controversial tender mogul Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala, who was Thobejane’s former partner.
The white Hyundai i20 used in Swart’s murder was traced to a January 2024 hijacking in Sunnyside, Witness A said.
The killers had fitted it with duplicate licence plates belonging to an elderly woman’s vehicle. A third car used in the operation was linked to Mabusela’s daughter.
Witness A further testified that after the arrests, he and his colleagues were harassed and followed by individuals suspected of being sympathetic to the accused.
He said that during a court appearance for Tau and his co-accused, a group of plainclothes individuals, believed to be police officers, tried to force the investigators’ vehicle off the road as they left the courthouse.
He then recounted a meeting with Major-General Richard Shibiri, the national head of organised crime investigations in the Hawks, who described the Swart case as “very sensitive”.
According to Witness A, Shibiri warned that the suspects were connected to dangerous figures, including the late taxi boss Jothan ‘King Mswazi’ Msibi, and that the investigators “should look after themselves”.
Shibiri allegedly added that there were three envelopes on offer; one each for the investigating officers, the prosecutor, and the magistrate handling the case.
Witness A said he and his team understood this to mean bribes.
Witness A’s testimony continues.
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