Within weeks of missing a parliamentary briefing, the Hawks submitted 13 lottery fraud dockets to prosecutors
- The Hawks submitted 13 lottery-related dockets to the NPA within weeks of missing a parliamentary oversight briefing and being blamed for delays.
- The Hawks are investigating 33 lottery-related cases involving National Lotteries Commission (NLC) grants that were redirected to private individuals and NLC employees.
- The NLC has also revealed that affidavits supplied to the Hawks by former staff members contained "half-truths", "material inconsistencies" and "self-serving" statements, and it is currently vetting these.
- Over R2-billion in NLC grants are under investigation, the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) previously told Parliament.
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 (NLC) grants to the NPA for a decision on whether to prosecute.
Follow us on WhatsApp | LinkedIn for the latest headlines
Two dockets were submitted within days of the hearing. Two more were submitted in April and nine more in May.
Many of these cases were 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 (SIU) 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 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 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 SIU previously told Parliament that it was investigating dodgy grants totalling over R2-billion.
On Wednesday, Nkosi told MPs that the Hawks were currently investigating 33 lottery-related cases, of which two are in court, 17 have been referred to the NPA, and 14 are still under investigation.
"In each case, grant funds disbursed by the NLC were never applied to their stated purposes," Nkosi said. "Instead, funds were redirected to private individuals and associated entities -- including, in multiple instances, to serving or former employees of the NLC itself."
Evidence, including an auditor's report, had revealed "a pattern of organised crime involving the same suspects across several cases," he said.
"Clear linkages have been identified in the modus operandi, particularly where certain applications relied on the same NPO constitution, and identical sets of financial records ... No legitimate NPO can have a constitution or financial records that are word-for-word identical to another organisation's [constitution]," he said
The NLC also updated MPs on Wednesday on progress with its own investigations. NLC head of legal Lesedi Bohang said that it referred 99 cases, valued at over R121-million, to the SAPS between 2023/24 and 2025/26
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
In addition, it also referred 194 cases valued at R347-million to the SIU between 2023/24 and 2025/26. This included 126 cases under an extended proclamation granted in October 2025, which allowed the SIU to investigate dodgy procurement.
One issue that the NLC had identified, according to Boihang, was problems with statements and affidavits supplied to the Hawks by former members of staff.
These included "material inconsistencies" and "irregularities" that required "corrective intervention", he said. They had included "half-truths, and in some cases they were patently misleading" and "self-serving".
Boihang said the NLC's legal department was currently conducting a process, which would be concluded by the end of June, to ensure that "all affidavits going to the DPCI [Hawks] and other competent authorities...are factually correct and legally defensible".
