The National Head of South Africa’s Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (DPCI), Lieutenant General Godfrey Lebeya, this week assured South Africans that the Hawks, as the directorate is known, are committed to the mandate of “investigating, preventing and combating national priority offences”.
Lebeya was speaking during a media briefing to outline progress and milestones achieved during the first quarter of the financial year 2024/2025.
According to statistics presented by General Lebeya, “At the end of the last financial year, the DPCI was carrying 18 461 cases involving 752 712 charges with the value of One Trillion, Twenty-Six Billion, Eight Hundred and Seventeen Million, Twelve Thousand, Five Hundred and Ninety-Seven Rands, Thirty-Eight Cents (R1, 026, 817, 012, 597.38).
The arrested suspects are alleged to have been involved in crimes including serious corruption; fraud; money laundering; police killings; cash-in-transit robberies; illegal mining; damage to essential infrastructure and crimes against the State.
“A total number of 673 suspects, representing 637 natural persons and 36 juristic persons, were secured before the various courts in the country.
Break down
- Of these natural persons, 489, which is 77%, are South Africans
- 148, which is 23%, are foreign nationals
- Of the 262 sentenced natural persons, 173 are South Africans while 77 are foreign nationals
- The top sentenced foreign nationals are Zimbabweans 27, Basotho (Lesotho) 14, Mozambicans 10 convicts
Stereotyping of Nigerians
In the typical South African media tradition, this development would have been reported with the headlines on Nigerian criminals in South Africa if there was a significant number of Nigerians among the foreign nationals prosecuted and convicted.
Watch General Lebeya reeling out the whole crime statistics in this VIDEO
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