PiE News
Centurion — Five years after Lieutenant-General Sindile “Pitso” Mfazi was buried under an official finding of COVID-19 complications, police have raided offices and homes across Gauteng and begun questioning a person of interest in what is now formally a murder investigation — the culmination of a campaign by his family that outlasted a pandemic, an inquest, and years of institutional silence.
National police spokesperson Brigadier Athlenda Mathe confirmed the case had been upgraded after Mfazi’s exhumed body was found to contain a poisonous substance. Investigators are now trying to establish not just how the poison entered his system, but who wanted South Africa’s most senior detective silenced — and why.
On 8 July 2021, Mfazi — then Deputy National Police Commissioner for Crime Detection — died at his Pretoria home after what was reported as a rapid deterioration following a positive COVID-19 test. He was found by a colleague. Both the South African Police Service and Parliament accepted the pandemic explanation at the time, and the case was closed as a natural death.
His family was never satisfied. They pushed back on the official account and eventually persuaded the then National Commissioner to instruct the SAPS Cold Case Unit to reopen the matter — a process that dragged on for years before producing the evidence that has now upended the original finding.
The breakthrough came after Mfazi’s body was exhumed and re-examined. Forensic tests detected a poisonous substance in his system. According to testimony given earlier this year to Parliament’s ad hoc committee probing police corruption allegations, former Crime Intelligence officer Pilasande Dotyeni went further, telling MPs that toxicology results pointed to liquid casting resin — which he said explained why blood was found in the room where Mfazi died.
Dotyeni also testified that one of Mfazi’s drivers had contacted him on the night of the death, and that Mfazi’s wife had been overheard being told to put down her phone while people moved around her. He alleged that SAPS head office personnel removed investigative documents from the house before the body was even taken from the room — an account that, if substantiated, would suggest the scene was compromised from the outset.
What he was digging into
As head of crime detection, Mfazi sat across some of the most politically dangerous corruption files in the police service. At the time of his death he was investigating the SAPS Secret Services Account and an alleged R1.6 billion personal protective equipment procurement fraud scheme tied to the government’s COVID-19 response. Reporting since the case reopened has also linked his work to questions around the Phala Phala farm burglary and allegations of misused Crime Intelligence funds.
Mathe said investigators are now working to establish whether those inquiries are connected to his death, but stopped short of naming a motive. “The evidence will lead us to why anyone would want the then-deputy national police commissioner for crime detection killed,” she said, noting Mfazi’s dual oversight of detectives and Crime Intelligence made the list of people with something to fear from him a long one.
This week’s raids
On Monday, the Cold Case Unit and the Special Task Force carried out search-and-seizure operations at four properties in Centurion — two offices and two residential addresses — seizing electronic devices police say will be analysed alongside years of accumulated case evidence. Several of the properties are linked to serving SAPS members, deepening scrutiny of the police service’s own ranks.
Mathe declined to identify the person of interest currently being questioned or to confirm how many others investigators are looking at, citing the sensitivity of the case. She said more search operations, and potentially further questioning, are expected as the unit builds what it now describes as a full-scale murder case.
A family still waiting
The Mfazi family and an associated foundation have called for the return of what they say are missing investigative dossiers and for a full parliamentary inquiry into how the original COVID-19 finding was reached and why it took years of family pressure to reopen the case. A public petition backing that call has drawn thousands of signatures.
For now, police say the priority is finishing the investigation and giving the family answers after nearly five years of uncertainty. Whether that investigation reaches the “high-profile individuals” Mathe says are being pursued — and how far up the chain of a police service now investigating its own — remains the open question hanging over the case.