GROUNDUP: After years of delays, Hawks fast-track lottery corruption cases to prosecutors

In the weeks after the Hawks failed to attend a key parliamentary briefing on their lottery investigation, they rapidly referred 13 National Lotteries Commission fraud and money-laundering dockets for prosecution. The sudden surge in referrals revived long-running cases dating back to 2020, as investigators pointed to an alleged organised criminal network that diverted lottery grants worth millions from their intended beneficiaries.

There was a sudden flurry of cases referred to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) by the Hawks in the weeks after they failed to pitch for a parliamentary briefing on their ongoing investigation into the lottery in late March.

Within days of the meeting, and in the weeks that followed, the Hawks submitted 13 dockets alleging fraud and money laundering involving National Lotteries Commission grants to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) for a decision on whether to prosecute.

Two dockets were submitted within days of the hearing. Two more were submitted in April, and nine more in May.

Many of these cases had been reported to the Hawks several years earlier, between 2020 and 2022, the rest in 2023 and 2024, and two cases in 2025.

During the March meeting, both the NPA and the Special Investigating Unit briefed Parliament’s trade and industry portfolio committee, which has oversight of the lottery, on their progress in holding those involved to account. At the time, Andre Hermans, the committee secretary, told MPs that he had tried to contact the South African Police Service (SAPS) to confirm its attendance, but “could not get hold of them”.

But Lieutenant-General ST Nkosi, acting head of the SAPS Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, the official name for the Hawks, told the committee on Wednesday, 3 June 2026, that they did not attend because an invitation was never received.

At the March meeting, the NPA placed much of the blame for delays in prosecutions at the door of the SAPS.

A key reason identified by the NPA for the lack of lottery-related prosecutions was the failure by the Hawks to appoint forensic accountants in almost all cases of complicated lottery fraud and corruption they are investigating. The role of these accountants is to guide investigators and also analyse the financial evidence collected.

The Special Investigating Unit previously told Parliament that it was investigating dodgy grants totalling more than R2-billion.

On Wednesday, Nkosi told MPs that the Hawks were currently investigating 33 lottery-related cases, of which two were in court, 17 had been referred to the NPA, and