Two Mitchells Plain cops will be spending three years behind bars after they accepted a bribe from a drug dealer.
The two were busted after
taking R1000 from the mert, after blackmailing him by planting drugs in his garden.
Constables Ryan Hopkins and Malibongwe Ndzendze were sentenced to six years behind bars of which three were suspended for five years at the Bellville Commercial Crime Court this week.
In 2015, while the two officers were on duty, they went to the mert’s house in Eastridge while he was out.
His wife called him to say two cops were searching for drugs and apparently found several pakkies of tik buried in the garden.
The cops waited for him to come home and Ndzendze told him that “they needed to speak”.
They then shoved him into the back of a police van and told him to “call his people and sort them out”.
But, instead, the mert called Lentegeur SAPS and piemped the dirty cops to Captain Nadine Britz.
The vuil cops drove with the drug dealer to the Liberty Promenade Mall in Mitchells Plain.
SCENE: Cops accepted R1000 from dealer. Picture illistration
They were arrested with the bribe money in their possession, says Eric Ntabazalila, spokesman for the National Prosecuting Authority.
“Advocate Derick Vogel told the court that they stopped at the Promenade Mall parking and asked the dealer if he phoned his people.
“He offered them R500, but Hopkins shook his head.
“They were then offered R1000, which the accused had at his house.
MANG: Ryan Hopkins bribed mert in M.Plain
“He gave them the money and then phoned Warrant Officer Britz again and informed her of what had happened.
“Three other officers confronted the two accused about the allegations against them and asked them to empty their pockets.
“Ndzendze had a roll of money in his pocket, which he claimed was given to him by his wife.
“Suddenly Hopkins remembered the money was supposed to have been booked with the drugs they claim they found abandoned on the street.”
Ntabazalila says they welcome the conviction of the corrupt cops.
“The NPA welcomes the sentence as it sends an unambiguous message on its position on corruption.”
OPPIT: Captain Nadine Britz