MADLANGA COMMISSION: Feroz Khan — Centrifugal force in SAPS tender dealings with tobacco bosses, inquiry hears

While senior South African Police Service (SAPS) Crime Intelligence officer Major-General Feroz Khan remains in hospital and unable to testify as a key witness at the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry, evidence leaders on Friday, 3 July 2025, outlined documents downloaded from two confiscated iPhones, seized during a raid on his home in May.

The focus of Friday’s session was on Khan’s specific relationship with Carnilinx Tobacco Company founder, Mohammadh “Mo” Sayed, and director, Adriano Mazzotti, and various communications between the policeman and the businessmen.

These included South African Revenue Service (SARS) and Treasury internal communications and documents, which related to SAPS Covid-19 personal protective equipment (PPE) and other tenders, as well as other sensitive police matters.

While Rome burned

Khan was illegally appointed in December 2020 by the now late Major-General Sindile Mfazi as acting national head of Crime Intelligence (CI). An established insider, Khan’s various roles included head of Gauteng CI and then later head of national counter security. He was then appointed deputy national head of CI.

In early 2021, while Khan signed off on five irregular procurements, former president Jacob Zuma and his supporters were vocally heading for a showdown of note in July 2021.

The SAPS, the South African National Defence Force and the intelligence services had totally missed the moment, resulting in more than 300 deaths, mayhem and destruction. This is also the context in which the Madlanga Commission went digging on Friday.

Let bygones be bygones

Before proceedings began on Friday, evidence leader Advocate Adila Hassim read into the record a letter Mazzotti had delivered to the commission on Saturday, 28 June.

In a nutshell, the tobacco trader attempted to prevent the inquiry’s admission of contextual evidence pertaining to his previous history and admitted criminal transgressions in his company’s settlement with SARS.

It was all water under the bridge, the commission should let bygones be bygones and let sleeping dogs lie, he urged.

Carnilinx, said Mazzotti, had acknowledged its liability for all income tax, VAT and excise duty previously not paid. It was now functioning as a legitimate tax-paying concern and digging up old cows would damage its reputation.

Plots and schemes

Mazzotti has previously not been shy about his financial support of Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) leader Julius Malema, politically and personally. Malema has lived in a heavily guarded Hyde Park property owned by Mazzotti. They are family friends.

Malema also features in the Madlanga commission’s probe into Khan’s spheres of influence in a series of messages allegedly conspiring with the EFF to set a trap in Parliament to embarrass former Inspector-General of Intelligence Dr Selumanthuro Dintwe. Dintwe had revoked Khan’s security clearance. Khan sought to have him removed from office.

Khan had also provided Malema, using his access to the criminal justice system, the name and address of the complainant in the VBS matter, Anoosh Rooplal, the curator.

The taxman cameth

Back in 2020, Mazzotti’s 52-page admission to SARS had resulted in the settlement of a whopping R25-million outstanding tax bill. The initial demand had been for around R35-million.

Mazzotti’s admissions included an acknowledgement of serious criminality, including tobacco smuggling, corruption, fraud, money laundering, tax evasion and attempted bribery of SARS officials.

“This was not only improper conduct but immoral. This was unlawful and morally wrong. No records were kept of the manufacturing process. This was deliberate as to avoid any detection,” Mazzotti told SARS.

He confessed that Carnilinx had “entered into a host of transactions, some of which were lawful and others corrupt and unlawful”. He described how he had given R500,000 in cash to one of the country’s most celebrated senior advocates, Mike Hellens, after their initial legal victory over SARS.

The company, he admitted, also handed R800,000 in cash to attorney Ian Small-Smith, to bribe SARS High Risk Investigative Unit head Johan Van Loggerenberg and SARS deputy commissioner Ivan Pillay.

On Friday, Mazzotti said he was “naive” at the time to believe “SARS officials can be bought”.

In 2019, he apologised unreservedly to Van Loggerenberg and Pillay, but by then the damage had been done. Then SARS commissioner, Tom Moyane, was in the hot seat of the wrecking-ball machine.

The facts and only facts

While Mazzotti argued that the commission should only focus on facts and not media reports and rumours, Hassim said the SARS settlement was fundamental to the context of Mazzotti’s links to Khan and the procurement of SAPS PPE tenders in 2020 during the Covid-19 epidemic.

There was direct evidence in thousands of WhatsApps that Khan had shared an internal SAPS document with Mohammadh Sayed about tender requirements.

As he was head of operational support at CI, Khan’s links with Sayed needed to be unpacked, Hassim argued. Arguments were not based on media reports, rather Sayed’s own alleged conduct was under scrutiny.

“A lot of what is said is answered by direct reference to Mr Mazzotti’s affidavit that was provided to SARS. Settlement agreement between Carnilinx and SARS only concluded in 2020,” she said.

Hassim added that while there has not been any proven criminal case brought against Sayed, “these are very serious allegations and we are entitled to consider that”.

“We have the objectively verifiable evidence before us,” she said.

Those were, she said, the factual basis of the allegations of the conduct of Carnilinx and its directors “who are engaged in that unlawful conduct”. Whether the SAPS or any other law enforcement agency has followed up on these admissions by Mazzotti is unknown.

Tenders for days

Hassim said that the commission was not a roving inquiry into ordinary procurement irregularity or the garden variety of tender fraud.

“This is about whether a senior member of the service was a conduit for private or commercial interests. Access or influence or SAPS corruption falls within the ambit of the inquiry.”

She said there was more than one engagement “on corrupting and facilitating an improper PPE tender during the time of Covid”.

The various tenders discussed by Khan with Sayed, who also owned a security company, included an Independent Police Investigative Directorate security tender for 66 guards, and an IT tender for Cyberia Technologies to develop a “rules engine” to manage micro-loans, valued at around R280-million.

Investigators had identified a draft memorandum of understanding dated July 2021 between Cyberia and a company called Smada, which is characterised as a corporate kickback vehicle for Khan and Sayed.

The Pilot

Allegedly to grease the pole for Sayed, Khan connected with Molefe Fani, who was then head of procurement at National Treasury. He later joined SAPS as divisional commissioner of supply management with the rank of lieutenant-general. He has since been suspended.

“Khan participated with Fani, or Pilot as we know him, as an intermediary whose involvement is necessary for the tenders,” said Hassim.

Khan, she noted, had sought information on a company, Branded World, an entity separate but with suspected links to the Cyberia contract, and had arranged meetings with various key players

Khan also reported back to Sayed on meetings Fani had held with regard to the contract and instructions for Smada to meet with potential partners such as MTN, from which he also tried to score a contract.

These examples served, said Hassim, as primary examples of Khan’s alleged involvement in procurement manipulation and the use of his official influence to benefit private associates. DM