Cape Town - The police’s Hawks unit have confirmed that they are investigating Western Cape Premier Helen Zille’s “spook”, Paul Scheepers, over how he came to possess a “grabber” – used to intercept cellphone calls, text messages, e-mails and popular applications like WhatsApp.
Crime intelligence cop Scheepers has been suspended from the SAPS since his arrest on May 8, after a raid by the police’s anti-corruption unit on his office at the SAPS crime intelligence provincial premises in Bishop Lavis and the offices of his business, Eagle Eye Solutions Technologies, in Southfield. He was released on R2 000 bail.
Hawks spokesperson Hangwani Mulaudzi said: “We are investigating the issue of the grabber, about how he came into possession of it and whether he was using it for his business.”
The Israeli-made “grabber” can tap up to 10 000 cellphones and intercept its data over a specific radius, and is used by international crime-fighting organisations like the FBI.
But in the wrong hands the machine can also be used for industrial espionage.
In August, the Hawks seized a grabber during a sting operation in Johannesburg and arrested two men after crime intelligence officers, posing as buyers, were offered the machine for an undisclosed amount, although it is worth more than R25 million.
Scheepers is already facing two court battles. His application is due to continue in the Western Cape High Court to have the search warrant authorising the raids on his SAPS office and businesses premises declared invalid.
Earlier this week, he appeared briefly in the Bellville District
Court on charges of fraud, perjury and contravening the Electronic Communications Act. According to the National Prosecuting Authority, he could face more than 40 charges of fraud, corruption and tender fraud.
Last week, Zille’s office confirmed that Scheepers’s company was issued with a tender in 2010 after the premier suspected her phones, and that of her cabinet, had been bugged by the National Intelligence Agency.
In his affidavit to the high court, Scheepers lists an “SAPS (grabber)” as one of 49 items seized from him. However, the affidavit does not state from which of his offices the items were seized. A police source said the grabber was in fact seized from Scheepers’s business premises in Southfield.
According to the source, Scheepers used the grabber to intercept the cellphones of Zille’s cabinet and DA councillors in the City of Cape Town who were seen as a threat.
One of those believed to have been bugged is former DA Cape Town metro chairperson Grant Pascoe, who dramatically defected to the ANC months before last year’s general election.
Asked whether he was aware that his phone had potentially been bugged, Pascoe said: “If it did happen, I was one of many.”
Former community safety MEC Lennit Max, who in 2005 defected from the Independent Democrats to the DA after a falling out with his then party leader, Patricia de Lille, would not say whether he had been asked to hand over his cellphone to Scheepers as part of a security sweep of the provincial cabinet.
Asked this week whether any evidence had been found that Zille and her cabinet colleagues’ phones had been bugged, her spokesperson, Michael Mpofu, would not answer. Asked what subsequent action had been taken after Scheepers had done his “debugging”, Mpofu was again reticent.
While the provincial government insisted it had not broken the law in acquiring the services of Scheepers, the State Security Agency insisted that using a private contractor to conduct what amounted to intelligence work was a violation of the National Strategic Intelligence Act.
More about the ‘grabber’
An IMSI-catcher or Stingray in the US, colloquially known as a “grabber”, is popular with law enforcement agencies, although its legality has been called into question because of its pervasive capabilities.
Asked about the machine, Hawks spokesperson Hangwani Mulaudzi said it was “very dangerous” in the wrong hands.
According to a police source, the grabber seized from Scheepers had the ability to mimic cellphones by accessing its unique IMEI (International Mobile Station Equipment Identity) numbers.
This meant the phone could be cloned on the network and information like phone records, messages and applications could be accessed remotely – within a radius of up to 7km.
@mtyala
Cape Times
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