Alleged crooked cops embroiled in R102 million police tender fraud

Kishene Chetty, a member of the Chetty crime family accused of stealing more than R102 million through fraudulent police tenders, allegedly bribed two former senior officers with a combined R4.7 million from the spoils of the graft. 

The bribery allegations are contained in a 28 April, Pretoria high court ruling seizing and freezing the assets of Kishene Chetty, his father Krishna Chetty and 37 other defendants.

Lieutenant General Ramahlapi Johannes Mokwena, the South African Police Service’s former supply-chain management head, and Brigadier James Ramanjalum, who succeeded Ramahlapi in the post, allegedly received R2.5 million and R2.2 million from the alleged corrupt tenders, with Kishene Chetty supposedly pocketing more than R3.1 million directly.

The Chettys face a string of fraud and corruption-related cases in different courtrooms, and are accused of scoring 53 lucrative contracts from SAPS over many years, through the alleged use of fronts including pensioners receiving state grants and subsidised housing, in more than 20 companies that received police tenders.

An example was how Lorette Joubert, a white woman who is listed as the sole director of Vatika Trading, allegedly misrepresented that she was a black woman to circumvent empowerment legislation in order to secure a R50 million contract to mark police vehicles, with the state claiming the Chettys received the proceeds. 

The state claims Joubert was the employee of Kishene Chetty. Joubert’s daughter, Maricha Joubert, also allegedly fronted for the Chettys. 

The cases against the Chettys and the alleged crooked cops are being prosecuted by the investigating directorate (ID) of the national prosecuting authority (NPA), with the application to seize the defendants’ property brought by the NPA’s asset forfeiture unit (AFU). 

AFU head Ouma Rabaji-Rasethaba welcomed the court ruling, saying: “The NPA frowns upon such alleged concerted criminality and will continue in the fight to rid [the] government of corruption. We will not hesitate to use our asset recovery powers to reclaim the state.” 

She added: “The obtaining of the restraint order has been made possible by full cooperation and collaboration between the police, ID and AFU.”