JGL Forensic Services - Where Integrity and Business Meet

The Blatant Bribery Attempt That Backfired: Has Corruption Become Normalised?

The single greatest threat to corruption is a courageous human being.I have learnt this from two decades as a forensic investigator, fighting corruption and fraud every day.Yet tragically, South Africa’s recent past is peppered with far too many courageous people who have paid the ultimate price for their determination to expose the truth. The most recent of these happened just last week, with the cold-blooded assassination of Marius 'Vlam' van der Merwe, suspected to be due to the testimony he gave at the Madlanga Commission.According to news reports, Van der Merwe, 41, told the commission that suspended Ekurhuleni Metro Police Department acting chief, Brigadier Julius Mkhwanazi, allegedly ordered him to dump the body of a suspect killed by EMPD officers in a bid to cover up a murder.It may be this testimony that cost him his life. He was shot multiple times in front of his family outside their Brakpan home last Friday night.Click below to read the full article. https://lnkd.in/dq6GN86h

How scammers exploit shopping season and how you can protect yourself

Pieter Loedolff and his wife Angelique thought they'd found a Black Friday bargain: a PlayStation 5 advertised on Facebook Marketplace for R3,850, marked down from R4,500. They drove to a house in Crossroads, Nyanga, to collect it. When they arrived, a woman directed them to wait. Then men appeared. One held Pieter at gunpoint. Another stabbed him repeatedly, demanding money. Angelique lay on the car hooter, screaming for help. They escaped, but without their money and deeply traumatized.Half of all South Africans have been scammed at least once, with most incidents happening on social media, according to JustMoney's ‘Money & Me Survey’. More than 100,000 cyberattacks were recorded on banking accounts in 2024, costing South Africans around R1.8 billion. Digital banking fraud cases almost doubled from 31,612 in 2023 to 64,000 in 2024.The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners South Africa confirms that fraud consistently spikes during Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Christmas. Scammers exploit the urgency and excitement of shopping season. When you're racing against time to grab deals or find the perfect gift, they count on you to skip the safety checks.Here's how they operate and how you can stop them.Click the link to read the full story - https://lnkd.in/df2iPG_J

The Gap Between Investigation and Enforcement

A wise person once said, “Never confuse motion with action.” I’m sadly reminded of this far too often when I look at South Africa’s recent past.We all know our country loves a good commission of inquiry. It’s our default response to pretty much anything. Public outcry over a lack of service delivery? No problem, we’re forming a commission to investigate.Forensic audits revealing local government fraud? Excellent – our newly created commission is looking into it.But that’s about as far as we go. Time, effort and eye-watering amounts of money are spent on commissions of inquiry and then…crickets. Regardless of the outcomes of these commissions – many of which highlight significant areas of concern, and often point out the exact individuals responsible – nothing further gets done.There is motion, but no action.Click below to read the full article. https://lnkd.in/dUZdHp9f

Municipal Corruption or Organized Crime

Two vehicles blocked the road. The message was simple: stop giving away free water, or else.The Gift of the Givers aid workers had just arrived in OR Tambo District Municipality to help flood victims still drinking from rivers after the June 2025 floods killed 90 people. Now they faced a group calling itself the "water mafia," with alleged links to municipal water contracts worth millions. This was not random criminal opportunism. It was protection of organized income streams.Research released by the Institute for Security Studies in November 2025 reveals what many South Africans already suspected. Corruption in many local municipalities operates like organized crime. The study mapped corruption patterns across three municipalities: Madibeng Local Municipality, OR Tambo District Municipality, and the City of Johannesburg. What emerged was not isolated incidents of individual greed, but coordinated criminal networks built on relationships between municipal officials, private contractors, and political appointees.The mechanics are straightforward. First, influence is gained through irregular appointments based on family, friendship, or political connections that extend into the private sector.Second, this influence manipulates legitimate systems for personal gain.Third, protection comes through either administrative cover or violent intimidation.The patterns are identical across all three municipalities studied. The systematic coordination required to perpetrate, sustain, and conceal these activities mirrors organized crime operations.Please click the link to read the full article - https://lnkd.in/dZnzpVZF

The Silent Exodus: How Moral Injury is Hollowing Out South Africa

A nursing student at a Johannesburg hospital watches a woman give birth on a floor. No healthcare workers attend to her. The student knows this violates everything she learned about patient dignity. She knows she should intervene. But the system is so broken, the understaffing so severe, that she can do nothing. That night, she updates her CV and starts researching nursing positions in the UK.This is moral injury. Not burnout. Not stress. Moral injury happens when you are forced to violate your deeply held values to survive professionally, when you watch preventable harm unfold and cannot stop it, when speaking up means losing your job or worse.In South Africa, moral injury has become so normalized it is treated as the cost of staying in the country.Please click below to read the full articlehttps://lnkd.in/dnCR5JFn

Is South Africa Making Ignorance Profitable?

The majority of the systemic problems facing South Africa are not visible on budget reports or financial statements. They lurk in the shadows, eroding trust, stealing futures and robbing promising individuals, (those who have the talent to fix our country) of the will and the energy to do so.In a recent post that was as brilliant as it was heart-breaking, Seako Masibi, from Mahikeng in the North West Province, wrote, “There comes a time in a nation’s life when even the educated must admit defeat - not because they have failed, but because the system rewards failure.”This damning statement came after a parliamentary session in which General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, the provincial Police Commissioner for KZN, was pictured in what Seako describes as a “dejected pose,” having been forced to answer questions “from a Parliament that confuses noise for intellect.”Click below to read the full article.https://lnkd.in/gsNyhC_4

South Africa's Healthcare Crisis

The R2 billion looted from Tembisa Hospital tells you everything about South Africa's healthcare governance crisis. This money could have saved lives. Instead, it bought Lamborghinis, luxury properties in Sandton and Cape Town, and enriched officials earning modest salaries who somehow pocketed R30 million each.The Special Investigating Unit's September 2025 interim report exposed three coordinated syndicates. Fifteen officials were involved in corruption, money laundering, and bid rigging. The number will rise as investigations continue. This fraud occurred between 2018 and 2023 at a single 840-bed hospital. The calculation is devastating: R2.3 million stolen per bed.This is the context in which South Africa debates the National Health Insurance. The question is not whether universal healthcare is needed. The Constitution guarantees it. The question is whether any system can succeed when governance failures enable theft at this scale.Please click below to read the full article:https://lnkd.in/d2sMgxeq

Ubuntu or Smoke and Mirrors

To much of the world, and, perhaps, to some of our more optimistic citizens, our country projects a dazzling, powerful image - a thriving democracy, rich with resources and governed by people committed to improving the lives of the millions of people who used their hard-won votes to place them in this position of trust.Sadly, the reality could not be more different. Modern South Africa is a nation built on the lofty ideal of Ubuntu, a value system championing a communal ethos over individualism. It promotes the ideals of shared humanity, compassion and kindness, restorative justice and collective responsibility.At its core, Ubuntu celebrates the well-being of the group over the selfishinterests of individuals.Yet, when you look around you at the country we live in today, Ubuntu is conspicuous by its absence. In fact, it increasingly feels like we’re the unwilling cast in a tragically ironic stage play that mirrors the tale of the Wizard of Oz. Click below to read the full article. https://lnkd.in/dWiDvsSA

Questioning Authority Is Your Constitutional Right

The security officer held up his pack of mini cable ties like she'd just discovered a bomb."These are prohibited."He looked at the tiny plastic strips in her hand. The same ones he uses to secure his checked luggage on every flight, and he flies a lot. The same ones you can buy at any hardware store for R20."Can you show me where they're on the prohibited list?"Her face hardened. "You need to trust me. They're prohibited."This is where it always starts. Someone with a uniform and a checklist deciding they know better than the actual rules. And when you dare to question them, you become the problem.Click the link to read the full articlehttps://lnkd.in/dQSGgqVa

Surviving Matric Madness - The Real Risks No One Talks About

If you’re the parent of a child currently in Matric, I don’t need to tell you what a rollercoaster of emotions the next few weeks create.
Final exams are just around the corner, and 12 years of formal schooling are almost over. It’s a rite of passage most children in South Africa go through and is often described as the most significant milestone in their academic journey.
Matric is the gateway to every child’s future, paving the way for a world of exciting opportunities and future careers. But without that vital certificate, university and college are off the table, and all but the most menial jobs are out of reach.
Expectations are immense, and failure doesn’t bear thinking about.
With so much riding on the next few weeks, all Matric pupils will feel anxious and stressed at this time. Some, however, feel it more than most, and the statistics on Matric-related anxiety and depression are hugely concerning.
Click below to read the full article:
https://lnkd.in/g9fgK9Sb