Unit Commander of the Durban Serious Organised Crime Investigation Unit, Colonel Gavin Jacob, has admitted that the drug consignment stolen from a Hawks facility could have been safeguarded had different decisions been made.
Jacob maintained in his testimony that he had fulfilled his responsibilities in handling the drugs seized during a bust at Durban Harbour.
“I didn’t know about the security threat, so I’ll say, yes, I’ll shoulder some of the blame and responsibility. I could perhaps have taken different actions to achieve a different outcome, but we now have the benefit of hindsight. At that stage, I never suspected something of this nature would happen there.
“But yes, I will accept some of the blame. If I had known that something this serious was going to happen, such as all of the drugs being stolen, I would have done everything possible to have them moved from that location,” said Jacob.
Jacob is believed to have been among the officials who decided not to store the confiscated drugs, with an estimated street value of R200 million, at a more distant facility. Instead, the drugs were kept at a Hawks storage facility in KwaZulu-Natal, despite the existence of other police storage sites closer to where the seizure was made. However, his explanation that alternative facilities lacked sufficient storage capacity came under scrutiny during questioning.
“Your explanation was that, because of a lack of storage capacity, the drugs were stored at the PCI Port Shepstone offices. Is that correct? Did I hear correctly?”
“It was because of the lack of storage space that I indicated to the Brigadier.”
“So it is not because of a lack of storage that they went to Port Shepstone. That’s misleading because we established this morning that there was storage available at Maiden Wharf. Therefore, whether with the benefit of hindsight or not, you cannot sit here today and claim there was no storage capacity in Durban. On the contrary, it has been demonstrated to you that there was,” said Evidence Leader Mahlape Sello during the exchange with Jacob.
Jacob is among the officers who processed the drugs worth R200 million that were later stolen from a Hawks storage facility in KwaZulu-Natal.