Hearing record
Day 126
Witness: Itumeleng 'Tumelo' Nku
Evidence led by Advocate Mahlape Sello SC
Businessman Tumelo Nku finally takes the stand on the R286 million Aeroton cocaine bust, insisting he was an unpaid police informer even as a Hawks analyst brands him a trafficker.
The day in brief
What you need to know
- Itumeleng 'Tumelo' Nku began his long-delayed testimony on his role in the 2021 Aeroton drug bust, the roughly R286 million cocaine consignment seized at a Scania depot south of Johannesburg.
- He was pressed on why he was at the scene carrying about R60,000 to R65,000 in cash, which he said was money set aside for an unplanned trip, not proceeds of crime.
- Nku maintained he was an unregistered, unpaid police informer rather than a participant, and said he had tipped off a senior officer, the late Lieutenant-General Mfazi, about the consignment via a secure messaging app.
- A Hawks analyst testifying under the pseudonym 'Witness J', whose evidence was heard in camera, told the commission that phone and container-movement records pointed to Nku being part of the trafficking network.
- Witness J's characterisation of Nku as a drug trafficker rather than an informer set up the central credibility contest that would run through his four days on the stand.
- Evidence leaders repeatedly told Nku his explanations did not hang together, previewing the shifting account that would follow.
Full coverage
The day, in depth
The informer defence
Nku's core position was that he operated as an unregistered, unpaid source who fed intelligence to law enforcement rather than trafficking drugs himself. He testified that he had warned the late Lieutenant-General Mfazi about the incoming consignment through a secure messaging app before the Aeroton seizure. Because his claimed informer status was never formally registered, the commission had no paper trail to corroborate it - a gap that IPID had earlier flagged.
The R60,000 question
Much of the day turned on why an alleged informer was found at a live drug scene with roughly R60,000 to R65,000 in cash. Nku said the money was for an unplanned trip and unrelated to the consignment. Questioners returned to the sum repeatedly, treating the unexplained cash as difficult to reconcile with a purely observational, tip-off role.
'Witness J' contradicts the source claim
The commission had heard from a protected Hawks analyst, 'Witness J', attached to the Priority Crime Management Centre, whose full testimony was taken in camera on Chairperson Madlanga's ruling. Witness J said analysis of Nku's cellphones showed a substantial role in coordinating the movement of the truck and containers from Durban harbour to Gauteng, describing a communicating network across encrypted and ordinary platforms. In short, the analyst placed Nku inside the trafficking chain, not outside it as a source.
In their words
Key moments from the record
“a drug trafficker, not an informer”
Our analysis
The bottom line
Day 126 framed the entire Aeroton chapter as a single, unresolved question: was Tumelo Nku a source who happened to be near the drugs, or a participant dressed up as one? Both cannot be true, and the commission spent the day probing the seams of the informer account rather than accepting it. The unregistered nature of his claimed status is doing a lot of work here - it means there is no independent record to confirm or refute what he says, which cuts both ways but leaves him carrying the burden of persuasion.
The R60,000 in cash is the kind of concrete, physical detail that a commission fixes on precisely because it resists a tidy explanation. An informer observing a bust has no obvious reason to be holding that sum at the scene. None of this is a finding of guilt; Witness J's analysis is itself untested evidence heard behind closed doors, and Nku is entitled to the presumption of innocence. But the day established the terms of the contest, and Nku's difficulty giving consistent answers under questioning is what the commissioners will weigh against the documentary picture the Hawks put up.
Analysis is the archive’s own comment on the public proceedings, grounded in the record above. It weighs the evidence and the process; questions of individual guilt are for the courts and the commission to decide. Everyone named is presumed innocent.
On the record
Who testified this day
Follow the threads
Who Itumeleng 'Tumelo' Nku connects to
In the room & on the record
Counsel, the panel and sources
Evidence led by
- Advocate Mahlape Sello SC
On the panel
- Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga (chairperson)
Sources
- Daily Maverick - Businessman says he told 'poisoned' top cop Mfazi about controversial R286m cocaine consignment (25 June 2026) ↗
- The Citizen - 'Your responses don't make sense': 'Police source' grilled over cash found at Aeroton drug bust ↗
- IOL - Witness J: 'Nku is not an informer, he is a drug trafficker' (23 June 2026) ↗
- SABC News - Madlanga Inquiry grills Nku over cash, Aeroton drug bust links ↗