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Cape Town – The South African Revenue Services (Sars) reportedly paid an official R3m in hush money after its illegal spy unit bugged President Jacob Zuma’s house.
According to the Sunday Times, the former head of Sars’ covert unit, a man referred to only as “Skollie”, blackmailed the agency into paying him the money in exchange for his silence on illegal operations the unit conducted including one involving a break-in at Zuma’s private residence in Forest Town, Johannesburg, where they planted listening devices.

This happened before Zuma was elected president.
In addition, the documents also claim that the unit intercepted a meeting between Zuma and Sars executive Leonard Radebe at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Durban ahead of the ANC’s Polokwane conference in 2007.

The unit was established in 2007 when Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Pravin Gordhan was Sars’ commissioner and it specialised in infiltrating crime syndicates, reports the newspaper.

The unit is now meanwhile the subject of three separate probes – by the Hawks, the Office of the Inspector General of Intelligence and Sars.
According to the report, the unit violated the National Strategic Intelligence Act, which states that only the military, police and intelligence structures can gather covert intelligence.

However, the unit is accused of numerous transgressions including that it illegally intercepted e-mails and phone calls of taxpayers; that agents were paid from a secret cost centre and that agents conducted physical surveillance and house infiltrations to spy on taxpayers.

Sars spokesperson Adrian Lackay confirmed the unit’s existence but denied that it – known as the National Research Group – had ever been involved in covert operations.

This latest development comes after News24 recently reported that a Pretoria lawyer had laid a complaint against the revenue service’s group executive Johann van Loggenberg after their relationship ended. During the course of this year, advocate Belinda Walter sent a series of e-mails to Sars officials complaining about Van Loggenberg.

“To put it mildly her allegations were alarmist and possibly defamatory,” Lackay said at the time. “Sars afforded the complainant the opportunity to substantiate the allegations.” — Sapa