Mpangase: Useful Because He Did Not Know
Warrant Officer Mbongeleni Felix Mpangase told the Madlanga Commission on 17 July 2026 that he had never worked a container drug bust before being called in on 22 June 2021. Under cross-examination he confirmed a SAP13 register entry that Chairperson Madlanga described as false and made knowing it to be false, could not account for a diary entry apparently signed by a colonel who was on leave, and stood alone against 3 police witnesses who contradicted his account of who was present during the search. The commission also heard that Mpangase resigned from SAPS in November 2021 and only returned on 14 February 2026, a gap of more than 4 years that was not explored further.
Mpangase, a detective attached to the violent crime unit of the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation in Durban in 2021, told the commission he had no experience investigating narcotics cases of this scale before Colonel Gavin Jacob called him on the morning of 22 June 2021 and asked him to stand by for an operation.
He said he raised his own inexperience with Jacob at the time, and asked that Jacob attend personally because the operation required someone experienced. Jacob agreed. Mpangase confirmed to the commission that he and Jacob had only worked one prior drug operation together, and that on that occasion no drugs were found.
There were 9 other officers on duty in the narcotics unit that same morning. Asked why Jacob did not call any of them instead, Mpangase said Jacob was not on good terms with 2 senior officers, Captain Mbele and Colonel Moodley, and that this extended to everyone under their command. He could not explain why this would rule out the remaining officers in the unit who did not report to either man.
The operation, based on information from a crime intelligence operative, led to the discovery of 27kg of cocaine inside a container at the CHC depot in Isipingo. Mpangase’s own November 2021 statement, given when his memory was freshest, put the figure at 27kg. An earlier reference in his testimony to 7kg to 8kg was clarified as the informant’s initial estimate before the search, not the quantity recovered.
The exhibits were later moved to Port Shepstone for storage after the Isipingo exhibit clerk said there was no space to keep them. It is from this point that the commission’s questioning focused most closely on Mpangase’s own conduct.
Mpangase personally entered the exhibits into the Isipingo SAP13 register and then booked them out the same day, recording that they were being taken for analysis. Advocate Sesi Baloyi put it to him directly that this was not true, since he already knew at the time that the cocaine was being taken to Port Shepstone for storage, not to a forensic laboratory. Mpangase’s response was that the timing of any eventual analysis was never within his control, since that decision belonged to whichever investigating officer was later assigned to the case.
Chairperson Madlanga tested this explanation further, asking Mpangase to consider that the analysis referenced in his entry could, on his own logic, have taken place 4 months later or not at all, meaning the entry had no real meaning at the moment he wrote it. Mpangase agreed with this characterisation, then moments later reversed himself and said the entry did make sense to him.
Advocate Sandile Khumalo told Mpangase plainly that for more than 24 hours there was no SAPS record at all of where the cocaine physically was, from the moment it left Isipingo until an entry finally appeared in the Port Shepstone SAP13 register the following day. Mpangase, who was left in charge of the exhibits once Jacob returned to leave, could not explain why he did not arrange for a Port Shepstone SAP13 clerk to meet him immediately and close that gap.
A further discrepancy centred on the investigation diary. An entry dated 23 June 2021, which Mpangase confirmed was in Jacob’s handwriting and bore Jacob’s signature, was put to him despite Jacob having been on leave that day. Mpangase’s only explanation was that Jacob might have backdated the entry after returning from leave on 29 June. This does not resolve the discrepancy, since Jacob’s own earlier testimony before the commission offered only the 22nd or the 29th as possible dates for the entry, not the 23rd.
Mpangase’s account of the search itself was also directly contradicted. His statement, his diary and his testimony all named 3 police officers, Sergeant Mkhize, Sergeant Govender and Ntuthuko Khuzwayo, as having observed the search of the container. Baloyi read from Govender’s own affidavit, which states the officers arrived only after the drugs had already been found, and were asked to assist with transporting the exhibits, not to observe the search. Colonel Jacob’s own testimony aligns with Govender’s version, not with Mpangase’s.
Baloyi put a direct theory to Mpangase, that he and Jacob had agreed in advance to say 3 experienced officers were present during the search, in order to make an inexperienced operation appear properly staffed. Mpangase disputed this, saying he would have had no reason to mention the officers if they had not been there, but did not otherwise account for why his version conflicts with the sworn evidence of the officers he named.
A smaller discrepancy concerned exhibit clerk Warrant Officer Jonathan Perumal. Mpangase’s earliest statement, from November 2021, makes no mention of approaching Perumal for forensic bags. That detail appears only in a later statement and in his diary. Asked to explain the omission, Mpangase said it had been mistakenly left out.
Towards the end of his testimony, Mpangase confirmed he had resigned from SAPS in November 2021, for reasons he described as personal and declined to discuss in open session. He returned to SAPS on 14 February 2026. He confirmed his resignation was submitted before the cocaine was stolen from the Port Shepstone facility during the weekend of 7 and 8 November 2021, and that he was still employed at the time of the theft. The commission did not pursue further questions on the gap between his resignation and his return.
