Sex, drugs and poison
Leaked government department document tells of jail syndicate running sex and drugs rings and organising ‘hits’
Female prison guards moonlighted as sex workers under the control of a syndicate run by officials and “influential” inmates at Mangaung Prison, from which Thabo Bester notoriously escaped in 2022.
An explosive leaked document compiled by the department of correctional services reveals that an investigation at the prison weeks after Bester was recaptured also uncovered claims of a “a poisoning campaign to take out offenders who allegedly ‘saw things’ leading up to the Bester escape”.
It details how the syndicate, believed to include a senior prison manager, controlled the flow of illicit drugs into the prison, ordered “hits” on inmates it feared would expose its members, and allegedly ran a money-laundering scheme.
Bester appeared to enjoy a senior position in the syndicate and is said to have made use of the services of the in-house sex workers.
Bester escaped on May 3 2022 with the help of prison staff, by burning a body in his cell to make it look like he had died in a macabre suicide.
He and his accomplice, Nandipha Magudumana, lived the high life in a Hyde Park mansion in Johannesburg for 11 months before the news broke that he was still alive. The couple were apprehended in Tanzania on April 7 last year and brought back to South Africa.
They are facing multiple charges, including murder, fraud and violation of a dead body. The trial is due to start in the Bloemfontein high court on February 21.
The departmental report found that the drug trade in the prison was largely controlled by a group of cash-in-transit kingpins and other “high-profile” and influential offenders, including Bester, in “Street 5” of the Wolds section of the jail, “where the business generation flourished”.
Services offered by the syndicate included “drugs [dagga and high-end narcotics], cellphones, ‘boy-wife’ movements [facilitating sex between prisoners], money laundering, and prostitution [female G4S staff rendering paid sexual services to offenders]”.
The report also highlights claims, or observations, of a trend in security breaches, including:
● CCTV blind spots in the courtyard;
● A delayed motion detector that allowed contraband to be thrown over a fence into a prison unit;
● Unauthorised radios and laptops;
● Shoddy lock-up procedures in which inmates entered their cells “at their leisure”;
● Inadequate supervision of prisoners, with just one night shift guard often expected to lock down an entire unit.
The department has confirmed the existence of the report, but says it cannot investigate further, “as some aspects also relate to the Thabo Bester escape incident, [which is] now before court and [in respect of which] investigations have not been closed”.
Mangaung Prison is run by Bloemfontein Corrections Consortium (BCC). G4S owns a 20% stake in the company and is responsible for operating the facility.
The investigation and report were done as part of the “transition” of control at the prison from BCC to the department following shocking revelations of how Bester faked his death in custody as part of an elaborate escape plan that allegedly involved prison officials and other inmates.
Justice and correctional services minister Ronald Lamola announced on May 2 last year that the department was terminating BCC’s 25-year contract, which expires in 2026, because of the Bester escape. However, BCC challenged the decision, claiming it was unfair and premature. A judge will decide the matter on April 16. Correctional services spokesperson Singabakho Nxumalo said a court-ordered mediation process to resolve the dispute has failed “and the matter had to go to court”. G4S continues to manage the prison pending the finalisation of the legal challenge. The departmental report names four female guards who moonlighted as prostitutes, allegedly receiving between R1,000 and R1,500 for providing sexual services to inmates and G4S officials. G4S sources at Mangaung Prison have confirmed the existence of the prostitution ring to the Sunday Times with supporting evidence.
The report also names two inmates who “were instructed by G4S staff to administer poison to offenders”.
One of those inmates, who is now being held in the neighbouring Grootvlei Prison, spoke to the Sunday Times in August last year. “I was approached by a G4S security manager in June 2022 [a month after Bester’s escape] who gave me a blue substance in a bag. He told me to put it in the food of prisoner Zwelinzima Nquru.”
The Sunday Times spoke to Nquru, who agreed to go on the record. He said he was Bester’s cellmate for several months. In the days after Bester’s escape, Nquru told G4S guards he didn’t believe Bester had committed suicide, not realising then that some guards had organised the prison break.
This was why he became the target of a planned hit about a month after the escape.
The inmate instructed to carry it out told the Sunday Times the security manager — who is named in the report — also gave him African herbs with which he could “cleanse” himself after poisoning Nquru. The inmate refused to carry out the instruction. He says he reported the incident to the controller —a department of correctional servicse official stationed at the prison and tasked with legal oversight of the institution.
“The controller said he could see on CCTV footage that the security manager had given
me something.” The controller asked the inmate to give him the poison so he could hand it to the police. The inmate gave him the poison, but retained some and took photographs of it, which he sent to the Sunday Times. He claims that on February 25 last year he spoke to Bloemspruit police station officers about the poisoning. They promised to return for further investigations, but never did. The inmate has not been interviewed again by the police about the poisoning bid.
Nquru — who has been in Mangaung Prison since it opened in 2001 — claims it is not the first time the security manager tried to poison him. In 2020, he reported a poisoning attempt to Bloemspruit police station and was given a case number.
Asked about the case this week, police national spokesperson Brig Athlenda Mathe said the matter is “still under investigation”.
“Investigators are working in close consultation with the National Prosecuting Authority,” she said.
However, Nquru was never again interviewed about his complaint and is unaware of any police investigation into it.
In the leaked departmental report, it is noted that an inmate “was instructed by G4S staff to administer poison to offenders”, and the document refers to “a poisoning campaign to take out offenders who allegedly ‘saw things’ up to and leading to the Bester escape”.
No action has been taken against the security manager, despite eyewitnesses reporting his involvement to the police.
The report contains further disconcerting information about the security manager. He would “lead external persons who spoke ... what is considered a Bulgarian/Russian/ Czech language” into another section of the prison, called Broadway unit, in the middle of the night.
Another leaked report seen by the Sunday Times alleges that the security manager “has been coming in ... around 2am with visitors ... that appear to be a Bulgarian moneylaundering syndicate operating within Mangaung Correctional Centre”. No evidence or facts are presented to support this .
The report about the department’s intelligence-gathering visit from May 22-25 references a named G4S official who allegedly stored the smuggled corpse of Katlego Bereng in a freezer in the prison kitchen. The corpse was burnt in the fire in Bester’s cell in a bid to convince authorities that Bester had died in the blaze.
This official has not featured in the police investigation into the Bester escape.
G4S is contractually barred from speaking to the media and has referred all enquiries to the department.
The department did not answer specific questions about the claims. Instead, Nxumalo said: “There was a searching operation conducted by the national emergency support team from May 22-25 [last year] at the Mangaung Correctional Centre. It involved gathering information from inmates and officials. It was deemed intelligence-driven.”
He said the allegations in the report “relate to what offenders verbally provided to the team”. He added: “Some of the alleged activities are damning. As a result, a thorough investigation to test these allegations and provide facts is necessary. That investigation is yet to be concluded, as some aspects also relate to the Thabo Bester escape incident, now before court and [in respect of which] investigations have not been closed.”
When approached for comment, Judicial Inspectorate of Correctional Services (Jics) CEO Vick Misser said it has not seen the department of correctional services report.
“Jics has never had access to important portions of the contracts between [the department and Mangaung Prison], or to secret reports issued by [the department] on [Mangaung Prison], despite its requests to be granted access,” he said.
“Despite engaging extensively and repeatedly with inmates and officials at [Mangaung Prison], Jics was not made aware of ... these documents.”
He said Mangaung Prison is inspected by Jics every year and evaluated on a fixed set of criteria including staffing, medical facilities, kitchens. overcrowding, the physical state of the building, rehabilitation and other programmes, and inmates’ contact with their family members.
“Jics has a total of nine personnel countrywide who are employed as inspectors and investigators. They serve some 250 correctional centres housing 155,000 inmates.”
Misser said Jics has highlighted various flaws at the prison before. These included a high percentage of inmates especially high-ranking gang members and inmates who are their known antagonists who were transferred to the facility from all over the country.
“This, in part, [explains] the high rate of violent and other irregular incidents at [Mangaung Prison],” he said.
Other issues that have been raised included the “ineffective” electronic supervision system for inmates and the continued use of porcelain toilet bowls, which were often broken up and used as weapons in gang attacks.