The arrest of a former senior police officer on ammunition charges has deepened a scandal that has shaken public confidence in South Africa’s law enforcement, and the case now touches the unresolved death of one of the country’s top detectives.
Mulangi Mphego, a 57-year-old former police general, appeared in the Johannesburg Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday, 20 October 2026. The charge concerns unlawful possession of more than 100 rounds of South African Police Service (SAPS) ammunition, allegedly found at his home in Centurion earlier this year.
According to a SAPS statement, Mphego was arrested after a raid on his Centurion home on 6 July, conducted by the police’s cold case unit. More than 100 rounds of police-issued R5 and 9mm ammunition were allegedly seized during that operation.
The July raid carried broader significance as well. Police said they “seized documents and electronic devices believed to be relevant to the investigation into the murder of Lieutenant General Sindile Mfazi”. Mfazi, who served as deputy national police commissioner of crime detection, died in 2021. Daily Maverick previously reported that the government attributed his death to Covid-19 complications. It was later alleged, however, that Mfazi had uncovered extreme corruption and was the target of professional murderers who poisoned him. His body was subsequently exhumed, and police confirmed they were investigating what had caused his death.
For the public, the case speaks to a wider question of accountability within the police service. Mphego left the police in 2009, but his name has recently surfaced among the broader accusations now confronting the institution. He once served as acting head of the beleaguered Crime Intelligence unit and had seemed supportive of certain individuals, including former national police commissioner Jackie Selebi. Selebi was appointed to lead the police in February 2000; in 2010 he was sentenced to 15 years in jail for taking bribes from drug dealer Glenn Agliotti. Mphego himself once faced a charge of defeating the ends of justice for allegedly trying to obtain an affidavit from Agliotti in support of Selebi. That charge was reportedly struck off the roll.
Other connections have also surfaced. In August 2018, the Mail & Guardian reported that Mphego was appointed special adviser to Deputy President David Mabuza, who died last year. In June this year, Mphego reportedly denied claims that he had been involved in raiding Mfazi’s home after Mfazi died.
Meanwhile, the arrest was announced just a day after National Police Commissioner Fannie Masemola returned to work. Masemola resumed his role six months after he was criminally charged, and later cleared, in a case central to South Africa’s unprecedented law enforcement scandal.
That scandal stems from accusations first made in July last year by KwaZulu-Natal police boss Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, who alleged that a cartel, later identified as the Big Five, had infiltrated the country’s criminal justice sector, politics and private security. The Madlanga Commission of Inquiry was created to investigate those accusations. During its hearings, a witness testified about a R286-million cocaine interception and referenced Mfazi, saying he had tipped off Mfazi before the drug was seized. Mfazi died a day before that interception, an incident police are now investigating as murder.
The stakes for ordinary South Africans are considerable. The inquiry and the surrounding investigations concern whether the institutions citizens rely on for safety have been compromised from within. Mphego’s court appearance, and the ongoing probe into Mfazi’s death, will be watched closely as tests of whether that accountability reaches even the most senior ranks.