Hawks colonel cannot explain R3 million in cash, and never applied for a warrant
Lieutenant Colonel Deena Govender spent Monday 31 August 2026 at the Madlanga Commission trying to account for just over R3 million in cash that went into accounts held by him and his wife, an amount chief evidence leader Advocate Matthew Chaskalson SC put to him is more than 100 times what he takes home in a month. Chairperson Mbuyiseli Madlanga told him his explanation for one set of payments was absolutely nonsensical. The same officer is the man telling this commission that suspended police minister Senzo Mchunu came onto a phone call and instructed him to blame Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi for 172 police shootings in KwaZulu-Natal. Almost lost at the end of a long hearing day was the sequence that has the widest consequences, which is that Govender decided to arrest Bevan Loftus in November 2022 and only obtained a warrant more than 3 months later, after police had twice forced their way onto a property looking for him.
Who he is
Govender is a Hawks officer in KwaZulu-Natal who ran a task team in the province. He first appeared before the commission on 21 August 2026 and returned on 31 August to answer questions he had deferred.
On 12 August the commission heard from Len Barnabas John, deputy director for investigations at the Independent Police Investigative Directorate in KwaZulu-Natal. John said most of the shootings his people examined involved a team under Govender’s command, and he placed bank records before the commission showing large amounts of cash going into accounts held by Govender and his wife against a take-home salary of under R26,000 a month.
The following day the commission heard from Gregory Loftus, a former police officer whose son Bevan was shot dead by police in a Morningside flat on 1 April 2023. Sihle Zondi, Ryan Santos, Chase Fynn and Michigan Hippolyte were killed with him. Gregory Loftus deposed to an affidavit on 31 March 2023, the day before the shooting, in support of an urgent application to stop Govender and the SAPS from killing his son. The application was issued that same day.
Govender denies all of it.
The minister on the phone
Govender told the commission that on 13 August 2026 he was approached outside the IPID offices in Durban by a man he named as Mavuso Ntandane, who he said is close to Mchunu. He testified that he was warned he would be poisoned and told he had to turn on Mkhwanazi. He said he telephoned Mkhwanazi about it, and that Mkhwanazi told him to record everything from that point on.
He testified that on 20 August 2026, the day before he first took the stand, the two men met at a hotel in Musgrave in Durban, and that during the meeting Ntandane telephoned the minister and handed him the phone.
Govender said he recognised the voice. He testified that the minister asked whether he loved this country, said that nobody must be allowed to ruin it, told him he would be protected, and told him he must implicate Mkhwanazi in the shootings.
The commission played the audio. The cleaned up version begins 20 minutes and 50 seconds into a file running 1 hour and 28 minutes, and it was entered into the record as exhibit DG7. What is audible is Govender’s side of the conversation. The voice on the other end cannot be made out.
Govender said the minister cannot deny the call took place. Mchunu’s spokesperson has said it did not happen.
The identification therefore rests on Govender saying he knows the voice. On 13 August, in the same set of hearings, Madlanga was asked to accept that Clive Naicker recognising Bevan Loftus’s voice within 2 lines of a telephone call showed prior knowledge of a killing. Madlanga said voice recognition proves nothing scientifically.
37 deposits in one evening
Chaskalson took Govender through the cash that went into accounts held by him and his wife between August 2022 and December 2023.
On one day in August 2022, 37 separate cash deposits were made at an ATM over roughly an hour. Govender said the money came from his mother-in-law, who he said keeps large amounts of cash at home and is often at the casino. He said he deposited it in R10,000 increments because an ATM will only take 100 notes at a time.
Madlanga asked why he had not simply walked into a bank the following morning and done it in one transaction. Govender said he thought the ATM would be easier. Madlanga told him it was not easier and that it was painful, and asked him the question again. Commissioner Sandile Khumalo raised the danger of standing at a machine for an hour with that much cash on him. Govender said he could not really give an answer.
Chaskalson had already said the pattern has all the hallmarks of a money laundering transaction. Govender said there was no money laundering exercise.
Cash that never went near a bank
Govender told the commission that a businessman he described as a father figure, a man who has since died, gave him cash to help buy a property in Sibaya for R2.35 million.
On 2 occasions, Govender said, he took that cash to a family friend who is an accountant but is not his accountant. He said the friend then arranged for one of his own clients to make an electronic transfer of the same amount into the account of the attorneys handling the purchase. Two payments, of R337,962 and R298,462, moved this way.
Madlanga asked 4 times in a row why the money took that route rather than going straight from the businessman to the bank, or from Govender to the bank. Govender said he thought it would be easier, then said he supposed there would have been more bank charges, then said he did not know. Madlanga told him the answer did not sound honest at all.
Govender’s sworn statement attributes 2 payments to the deceased businessman. His own spreadsheet attributes the same 2 payments to his brother. Confronted with the contradiction, Govender said he had made a mistake somewhere along the line and could not say which version was correct.
Chaskalson put it to him that R2.26 million of the total is attributed to a man who is no longer alive to be asked about it, and said the commission repeatedly encounters versions that only a deceased person could confirm.
Govender said the businessman’s family and his own children can confirm the relationship, and offered the names of people who could be approached. He said he did not steal the money and did not receive it from anybody improper.
The warrants
The sequence that received the least attention on Monday concerns process rather than money.
On 22 November 2022, Govender wrote an instruction on a police docket in his own handwriting. Trace and arrest suspect. The suspect was Bevan Loftus.
On 13 December 2022, police including Govender forced their way onto a property looking for him. On 3 February 2023 they did so again. The warrant for Bevan Loftus’s arrest was issued on 27 February 2023. Govender confirmed he never obtained a search warrant for either property.
Bevan Loftus was shot dead by police on 1 April 2023.
Asked what authority he had to force entry in December 2022 without a warrant, Govender said the police do not always need a warrant to arrest someone, and that arrests happen without warrants every day. He also said there had not been time to obtain one, and that he was dealing with a violent criminal rather than a white collar one. Chaskalson said that is a staggering proposition to hear from someone in charge of a track and trace team.
Madlanga set out the law himself. A police officer may arrest without a warrant where there is a reasonable suspicion and where the delay involved in obtaining one would defeat the purpose. In any other circumstance a warrant is required. Govender agreed that was correct, and eventually accepted that he ought to have applied for one in November 2022.
Chaskalson said the difficulty with a unit that treats warrants as optional is that no independent person ever assesses whether it may enter premises in situations where people are frequently killed. Govender disagreed with him.
To illustrate the kind of person his unit was dealing with, Govender asked the commission’s permission to play footage of a gang member firing an automatic rifle in a residential area with children nearby. He named that man as Ryan Santos. Ryan Santos was one of the 4 men shot dead alongside Bevan Loftus by Govender’s team on 1 April 2023.
One question near the end
In the closing minutes of the public session, Chaskalson asked Govender whether he had telephoned Clive Naicker from the scene where Bevan Loftus was killed.
Govender said he could not recall, and that it could be possible. Chaskalson said the commission will see what the phone records show.
Naicker has not given evidence to this commission. He denies any part in the shooting. Nothing before the commission traces the cash in Govender’s accounts to him, and Chaskalson said as much on 12 August when Commissioner Khumalo asked him about it.
Generals at a convicted drug dealer’s house
A further part of Monday’s evidence has had little attention.
Govender was asked about his relationship with businessman Timmy Marimuthu, who has a previous conviction for dealing in mandrax and is currently on trial for human trafficking. Govender said his children and Marimuthu’s grandchildren attend the same school and are friends, that his son accompanied one of Marimuthu’s granddaughters to a school dance, and that the two families encountered each other on a cruise, in the Drakensberg and at Sun City.
Govender testified that he drove senior officers to Marimuthu’s home for information. He named a major general who was then acting provincial head of the Hawks in KwaZulu-Natal, and another major general who now heads the Hawks in Limpopo, whom he said he took there roughly 3 times. He testified that those instructions came from Lieutenant General Godfrey Lebeya, the national head of the Hawks. He said his own provincial commander also went there separately.
Govender told the commission that Marimuthu’s wife was a full colonel in Crime Intelligence, that his daughter was a lieutenant colonel there, and that his son-in-law was a lieutenant colonel there as well.
Asked whether he was aware of allegations linking Marimuthu to organised crime in KwaZulu-Natal, Govender said he had not heard that.
Lebeya’s cross-examination before the commission is still outstanding.
What happens next
Govender’s evidence is not finished. Chaskalson withdrew a line of questioning about Naicker late on Monday and reserved it for a closed session, pending the declassification of documents that Govender’s own legal team has not been permitted to see. No date has been set. Govender was directed to file a further affidavit on police standing orders and national instructions by the end of this week.
Before he left the room, Govender asked the chairperson for a minute. He said he has been 30 years in the police, that he has never been through anything like this, and that he did not steal the money. He said his family was watching.
Feroz Khan
Suspended Crime Intelligence deputy head Major General Feroz Khan was due before the commission on 1 September 2026. He was shot outside his Houghton home on 28 June 2026, 2 days before he was first scheduled to give evidence.
Commission spokesperson Jeremy Michaels said on 31 August that the subpoena stands, that Khan’s legal team had indicated they may seek a postponement, and that no application had been lodged. Michaels said the commission understands Khan was discharged from hospital several weeks ago. Reports have since said he was readmitted, and the commission has said it has received nothing formal from his lawyers about any change in his condition.
The commission has already shown what it will do about this. On 14 August 2026, after a run of postponements on medical grounds and evidence that he was leaving his medical facility for up to 8 hours a day, Madlanga directed the commission secretary to lay criminal charges against businessman Suliman Carrim and said that was the end of the road as far as having him before the commission. Madlanga said at the time that if the commission did not act, witnesses would decide not to appear.
Everything placed before the Madlanga Commission is untested evidence. No findings have been made and no report has been submitted to the President. Everybody named in this article denies wrongdoing and is presumed innocent.
