Transnet Employee Implicated in Aeroton Cocaine Bust

Overview

• Hawks Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Sebola told the Madlanga Commission on Monday, June 8, 2026, that investigators found screenshots and extracted data from phones seized in the probe of the 2021 Aeroton seizure.
• Sebola said the evidence suggests someone inside Transnet could decide where a ship berthed and thereby direct access to specific containers.
• Investigators presented screenshots from the encrypted Threema messaging app and from an alleged informant’s phone that discussed photographing a container, its seal, and truck details used in the operation.
• Commissioners are actively testing Sebola’s credibility after he conceded limits in the evidence, including that the chats cannot yet be definitively linked to the Aeroton operation.
• The 2021 Aeroton bust seized more than 700 kilograms of cocaine with an estimated value over R300 million, and the commission’s findings could shape future prosecutions and reforms of port controls and oversight.