By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
National Hawks head, Lieutenant General Advocate Godfrey Lebeya, says they will collaborate with other governmental agencies in ensuring that the country is removed from the grey list.
Lebeya says the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (DPCI) will begin to focus its attention on ensuring that the country deals with compliance obligations raised by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) when it greylisted South Africa last month.
The Lieutenant General made the commitment on Friday while delivering a public update on the Directorate’s operations in the third quarter of the 2022/2023 financial year.
This comes after South Africa was put on a greylist in February by the FATF for falling short of certain international standards for the combating of money laundering and other serious financial crimes.
The FATF is a global body that aims to tackle global money laundering and terrorist financing. South Africa has been a member of the FATF for the last 20 years due to its commitment to fighting these criminal activities both at home and across the world.
During this period, the Directorate’s various divisions made over 800 arrests.
Addressing media, Lebeya said: “The DPCI arrested at least 803 suspects that were successfully secured before the various courts across the country in the third quarter of this financial year.”
During this period, 229 accused persons were convicted and sentenced, with some getting life terms.
“These arrests maintain the number of accused persons on the court rolls at… 11 673. One thousand, nine hundred and thirty-six (1 936) cases that are under investigation have reached a decision stage and the teams from the DPCI and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) are assessing them,” Lebeya said.
The Hawks’ boss said as they intensified their fight against economic crimes, they arrested members of a syndicate that targeted Transnet diesel pipelines.
“Almost 8.5 million litres of fuel, valued at approximately R102 million was stolen from national Transnet pipes in the last year, which led to the arrest of 49 suspects in the third quarter owing to the multi-disciplinary approach operations which continue to prove to be a working formula.”
The Hawks are also targeting drug dealers with at least four clandestine narcotics laboratories having been dismantled and several suspects being arrested.