Johannesburg - Wanted fugitives who have been spotted in Joburg and foreigners who use South African passports to gain access to other countries.
These are two of the worrying trends that can be picked up through the leaked so-called spy cables that have been placed on news network Al Jazeera’s website.
The cables are leaked documents from South Africa’s State Security Agency as well as some foreign spy agencies that were released on Monday and Tuesday.
There is no indication of how many cables will be released and over what period.
One of them is a list of foreign intelligence requests in February and March 2010.
Many of these requests are for information on possible terrorist threats because of the country’s hosting of the 2010 Fifa World Cup, but others are for information on people who have either entered and been spotted in the country or used a South African passport.
South Korea, for instance, asked the National Intelligence Agency, as the agency was then known, if it had any information on two Pakistanis who were arrested in South Korea.
They were travelling on South African passports.
The two had worked in South Korea for three years when their visas expired and they were sent home.
They then tried to re-enter South Korea on the South African passports.
South Korea also reported that during November 2009, Durban harbour authorities confiscated a shipment from North Korea that was en route to the DRC.
There were parts of combat tanks on board.
Zambia requested the travel record of a man who is wanted in Zambia for fraud involving state funds.
They said the man was bitter about his country.
He was spotted at the InterContinental Hotel at OR Tambo International Airport on the same day the Zambian president and the director-general of the Zambian intelligence service were at the hotel in transit to China.
Lesotho asked for information about a man who was involved in a plot to assassinate the country’s prime minister. According to its information, he lived in Joburg.
The Star