ANALYSIS: Khan out, Khumalo cleared: How the Crime Intelligence tables have turned

When Feroz Khan was a Crime Intelligence officer a couple of years ago, he alleged that he reported sensitive investigations about his national boss Dumisani Khumalo’s possible involvement “in acts of criminality, abuse of secret service funds and nepotism”.This, Khan had asserted, resulted in Khumalo using a cocaine interception to try to have him dismissed from the South African Police Service (SAPS).Now, two years later, the tables have completely turned.On Wednesday, 2 September 2026, Khan was officially dismissed from the SAPS for failing to appear before an officer involved in a fresh disciplinary process against him.Dismissed Crime Intelligence deputy head Major General Feroz Khan. (Photo: Gallo Images / OJ Koloti) Even though his dismissal seems to be based on a technicality rather than a guilty finding, and even if he challenges it as various media reports suggest he will, Khan’s troubles are clearly escalating.He faces criminal charges. He’s been wounded in a shooting. Multiple serious accusations have been made against him.Khan’s assertions about Khumalo from two years ago are now a mere foretaste of what has become South Africa’s unprecedented law enforcement crisis that has ravaged the country’s top tier of policing.As for Khumalo, despite having faced criminal charges, he has so far emerged rather well from this staggering crisis.He is back heading Crime Intelligence nationally, as well as other critical policing teams.To understand these power shifts, this overall scandal will be dealt with chronologically, starting in 2021.The R200m cocaine controversyOn 9 July that year – coincidentally when riots flared up after former president Jacob Zuma was temporarily jailed – a cocaine consignment worth around R286-million was intercepted in Gauteng.The cocaine had been transported to Gauteng from KwaZulu-Natal (where it arrived at Durban harbour from Brazil).Two main contradictory theories emerged about what happened next in Gauteng.One is that individuals, including police officers, intercepted the cocaine and tried to “flee” with the consignment, while the second is that officers legitimately intercepted it and other police interfered with them.A trafficker and a politicianBased on what has emerged at the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry, there are various theories about what happened in the 9 July 2021 Aeroton, Johannesburg cocaine interception saga.A businessman, Tumelo Nku, testified that he had been in contact with a drug trafficker named Eby and that it had been arranged for the cocaine to be intercepted to prevent it from reaching its intended recipient — a rival trafficker.Nku said he had been introduced to Eby by a distant relative — Umkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans Association leader and former deputy defence minister Kebby Maphatsoe, who died in 2021.Nku was among four people initially arrested in this cocaine saga. The charges against them were withdrawn, but the matter remains under investigation.Among the officers who arrived at the scene was Khan. Accusations arose that, while there, he brought the SAPS into disrepute.That was 2021. Fast-forward a few years.Towards the end of 2024, Khan was summoned to appear before an expeditious disciplinary process.Khan’s claims against KhumaloA Johannesburg labour court judgment from that time said Khan believed the disciplinary process was “a stratagem aimed at removing him from his position in the Counter and Security Intelligence, Crime Intelligence Division.”The judgment also stated: “It is [Khan’s] evidence that he is being targeted and victimised by certain members within SAPS because of certain investigations he is currently conducting.”Khan asserted that he had “reported sensitive investigations about the possible involvement of his immediate Commander […Khumalo] in acts of criminality, abuse of secret service funds and nepotism”.Crime Intelligence head Lieutenant General Dumisani Khumalo appears before Parliament’s ad hoc committee in Cape Town on 15 January 2026. (Photo: Phando Jikelo / RSA Parliament) According to the judgment, Khan believed that Khumalo (in 2024) was using the (2021) cocaine scandal against him “to secure his dismissal from the service”.Khan was successful in that Labour Court action – he prevented an expeditious disciplinary process from being held against him.Instead, a normal hearing was held.This is where the scandal expands.Khan was cleared in relation to the 2021 cocaine interception saga... by KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi.It emerged that Khan was cleared in March 2025.Crime Intelligence ‘capture’ warningThat same month, a SAPS presentation to Parliament warned of attempts to tarnish Khumalo and the Crime Intelligence unit.The presentation said a plan to clean up the beleaguered unit had been met with resistance.In other words, there was pushback, and some of it seemed to emanate from within Crime Intelligence.Embattled Crime IntelligenceSouth Africa’s Crime Intelligence unit is meant to intercept threats and crack down on high-level lawbreaking. Instead, it has for years generated accusations of crime being conducted inside the unit.Richard Mdluli, who was appointed to head the unit in 2009, just after Jacob Zuma became the country’s president, is now a convict facing charges in a case focused on Crime Intelligence slush fund looting, which he has denied.This is just one of many controversies dogging the unit.The parliamentary presentation added that Khumalo “had to identify and recruit capable senior officers” via transfers and promotions to ensure new performance indicators were implemented.“This resulted in the Divisional Commissioner to be wrongfully accused of bringing his ‘own people’,” it said.About three months later, at the end of June 2025, the Investigating Directorate Against Corruption (Idac) arrested Khumalo over an allegedly irregular appointment – essentially what the SAPS had warned he was being wrongfully accused of.Khumalo was criminally charged alongside six colleagues.Exactly 10 days after Khumalo was arrested, Mkhwanazi upended South African law enforcement.Mkhwanazi’s move and Khan’s shootingHe held a pivotal press conference and alleged a cartel had infiltrated the country’s criminal justice system, politics and private sector.Mkhwanazi later also insinuated that Khumalo’s arrest was the work of, among others, duplicitous colleagues, and he alleged that Idac had a rogue element running through it.Idac head at the time, Andrea Johnson, denied this.Mkhwanazi’s accusations sparked the creation of the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry and a parallel parliamentary ad hoc committee.More serious allegations and suspicions emerged from these hearings, both investigating Mkhwanazi’s staggering assertions.Meanwhile, things were not looking good for Khan.In May this year, he was arrested in a case relating to illicit precious metals.Accusations against Khan also surfaced at the Madlanga Commission, relating to his alleged links to tweaked tenders, a tobacco boss and a politician.Khan was to testify at the Madlanga Commission, but days before he was scheduled to appear as a witness, he was wounded in a shooting in Gauteng at the end of June 2026.Johnson’s resignationThe Idac hierarchy subsequently imploded.Johnson (whose husband is a Crime Intelligence officer) was made to testify at the Madlanga Commission.She admitted that the irregular appointment case against the group of Crime Intelligence officers, Khumalo included, was flawed. Former Investigating Directorate Against Corruption head Andrea Johnson testifies at the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry on 28 July 2026. (Photo: Gallo Images / Frennie Shivambu) Accusations against her began to mount, including that she was close to Khan.Messaging exchanges between them suggested this, with one from Khan to Johnson saying, “you gorgeous”.Johnson resigned in July as the accusations accumulated.Turned tables – Khumalo on topBack to Khumalo.Last month, the Idac-driven irregular appointment case in which he was charged, along with six colleagues, was withdrawn.Khumalo and his colleagues have therefore been cleared.Following his arrest last year, Khumalo was shifted from his position as Crime Intelligence head.On Thursday, 3 September 2026, Daily Maverick asked national police spokesperson Brigadier Athlenda Mathe what Khumalo’s status in the police service was.She confirmed he was the Divisional Commissioner of Crime Intelligence (the post he had been shifted from), as well as the project co-ordinator for the political killings task team in both KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.In addition, he heads the GCI-OPS – the Gauteng Counter-Intelligence Operations – teams.These are critical investigative policing teams, and two had previously been drawn into controversy through Mkhwanazi’s accusations.Mkhwanazi had alleged that on the last day of 2024, the now sidelined police minister Senzo Mchunu ordered the disbandment of the KwaZulu-Natal political killings task team because the minister had been influenced by criminals under the impression it was investigating them. (Mchunu denied being influenced, but was placed on special leave.)Mkhwanazi further explained that the suspects had been mistaken because the GCI-OPS team was actually investigating them, not the KwaZulu-Natal task team.These are the teams Khumalo now oversees.What nowThe events leading up to Khan’s dismissal, and Khumalo’s reemergence as Crime Intelligence boss, suggest that Khumalo was the one who was targeted – and not Khan, as Khan had alleged following the cocaine interception saga stemming from 2021.These happenings also add weight to the SAPS warning that Khumalo was being targeted for his cleaning up of Crime Intelligence, and to Mkhwanazi’s related accusations.Lawyers for recently dismissed Crime Intelligence deputy head Major-General Feroz Khan have hinted at a legal challenge to his dismissal, arguing that the decision was irregular and resulted from a procedural default. Tune in to #eNCA on #DStv403. pic.twitter.com/QlUCaEYmSr— eNCA (@eNCA) September 3, 2026 Zoom out.The collective events suggest an ongoing battle for the control of Crime Intelligence (and its secret service account).Indications that Khan plans to appeal against his dismissal mean that these tables may not yet have stopped turning.Khan is still meant to testify at the Madlanga Commission – his legal representatives said his health following the shooting has so far prevented this.If he eventually testifies, he will have to answer to serious accusations, and he may provide details that fit into the realm of State Capture. DM