Inside SARS Rogue Unit

Confidential papers suggest that Ivan Pillay misled former Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel and that the unit was illegal from the start.

- Jack Lundin

Last month the priority crimes litigation unit of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) finally brought criminal charges against the spymasters who ran the infamous and much-denied “rogue” unit that operated within the South African Revenue Services. And here Noseweek can reveal the story of the unit’s chequered history through confidential papers quoted in the aborted disciplinary hearings against its architects, Ivan Pillay and Johann van Loggerenberg.

These 2015 internal disciplinary charges were never tested – both former SARS Deputy Commissioner Pillay and investigations head Van Loggerenberg resigned rather than answer the battery of accusations against them.

The confidential disciplinary papers recount how the rogue-unit saga began, with a memo from Pillay, dated 2 February 2007, to then-Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel which sought and obtained permission to establish a special investigations unit within the National Intelligence Agency.

But it seems there was deception from the start. At SARS a decision initiated or supported by Pillay was said to have “misrepresented and misled” Trevor Manuel, resulting in the National Research Group being established not within the NIA, as directed, but within SARS. There it fell under the leadership of Andries Janse “Skollie” van Rensburg, who “misdirected” ministerial-approved funds to equip the new unit with cell-phone jammers, eavesdropping equipment, vehicle trackers, night-vision binoculars and covert recording equipment implanted on car keys and pens.

It is alleged that it was this SARS rogue unit that spied on the now defunct Scorpions and the offices of the National Prosecuting Authority in Silverton after prosecutor Gerrie Nel suspected that colleagues were leaking information about the prosecution of Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi to politicians.