Senior SAPS generals arrested in precious-metals corruption probe

South Africa’s police service was hit by a startling internal arrest on Sunday, when Major General Feroz Khan and Major General Ebrahim Kadwa were taken in with a civilian over alleged illegal dealing and unlawful possession of precious metals. The case cut straight into the upper ranks of the South African Police Service, with one of the accused described as a senior Crime Intelligence official and the other as the head of the Hawks in Gauteng.

The arrests were tied to an intensive Gauteng Counter-Intelligence Operations investigation into illicit precious-metals activity. SAPS confirmed that two senior officers and a civilian were arrested, and the matter is now being framed around precious-metals crimes rather than a generic corruption sweep. The suspects were expected to appear in court on Monday, May 11, 2026.

Kadwa’s arrest carries particular irony because he has previously spoken publicly about Hawks operations targeting illegal mining and precious-metals crime. That history now sits uneasily beside allegations that he himself was swept up in the very type of enforcement terrain he once defended. Khan’s role inside Crime Intelligence makes the case even more sensitive, because it places two of Gauteng’s most senior law-enforcement figures on the wrong side of an investigation led from within the policing system.

The fallout lands at a moment when public confidence in SAPS is already under strain. In August 2024, the Minister of Police publicly condemned corruption involving members of the service after an earlier Crime Intelligence case. In June 2025, Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Police welcomed the arrest of senior Crime Intelligence officers and called for a section 34 inquiry, underscoring how deeply the issue had already reached into the institution.

Now the arrest of Khan and Kadwa raises the stakes again. With a civilian also in custody and a precious-metals investigation reaching into the command structure of SAPS itself, the case is likely to intensify scrutiny of how illicit mineral networks operate and how far corruption has penetrated the police ranks meant to stop them.