CELE: CRIME PLANNED INNIE MANG

Former Police Minister Bheki Cele claims that most of South Africa's violent crime is being planned and organised innie mang by inmates serving life sentences.

The shocking revelation was made in an interview on the Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh Xperience (SMWX) podcast. 

Cele, who served as Minister of Police from 2018 to 2024, said correctional facilities have become a place where criminal syndicates are coordinating illicit activities beyond prison walls.

He says: “Most of the crime is planned from prison

“The people that are doing life sentences, they run crime outside.

“Correctional facilities themselves are, in some ways, reproducing crime.

“One day I was phoned by a guy in prison who refused to tell me who he was. He warned me that a chief was going to be killed in Ulundi. He gave me names, the lodge, and everything.”

Cele said he passed the information to KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi.

He add: “When Mkhwanazi got there, he found exactly what the caller had described. That came from someone inside prison.”

Cele, who served as National Commissioner of Police from 2009 to 2011 before being removed in 2012 over misconduct allegations, said crime statistics during his leadership were significantly lower.

Hy’t sy eie stert geprys, saying: “Go study the crime stats from 2009 to 2012. They came down. Not just by numbers, South Africans said they could sleep with their doors open.”

He credited the drop in crime to strategic collaboration during preparations for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.