The assassination of Lt-Col Charl Kinnear on 18 September 2020 exposed the most dangerous intersection in South African policing: the infiltration of SAPS Crime Intelligence by organised crime.
Kinnear served in the Anti-Gang Unit (AGU) — a specialised SAPS unit established by Police Minister Bheki Cele to combat gang violence on the Cape Flats. He became one of the unit's most effective investigators, probing the nexus between organised crime and police corruption. His primary target was Nafiz Modack, who had emerged as a dominant figure in the Cape Town underworld, allegedly running extortion rackets on nightclub and restaurant owners, drug trafficking, and kidnapping operations.
Crucially, Kinnear was also investigating the infiltration of SAPS Crime Intelligence by organised crime figures. Within the Western Cape division of Crime Intelligence, a rogue element of corrupt officers was providing classified police intelligence to criminal syndicates. These officers sold surveillance targets, investigation progress, informant identities, and planned operations to crime figures. They ran illegal surveillance against fellow officers and civilians on behalf of criminal networks, subverted legitimate investigations that threatened connected criminals, and allegedly misappropriated Secret Service Account funds.
In November 2019, a hand grenade was placed at Kinnear's Bishop Lavis home — it failed to detonate properly. Despite this unambiguous assassination attempt, and despite Kinnear's repeated formal threat reports to SAPS management, his protection was allegedly downgraded or removed.
On 18 September 2020, Kinnear was shot multiple times while sitting in his car in his driveway. He was 52 years old.
Zane Kilian — a former rugby player who had become a cellphone "ping" specialist — was arrested within days. He had allegedly tracked Kinnear's cellphone movements in the weeks before the murder, providing real-time location data to the assassination team. In April 2021, Nafiz Modack was arrested and charged as the alleged mastermind.
The trial of Modack, Kilian, and co-accused commenced in 2022 in the Western Cape High Court on charges including murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and POCA racketeering. The trial has been protracted, with numerous delays, security concerns, and legal challenges.
Brig. Peter Jacobs, former head of Crime Intelligence in the Western Cape, became a key whistleblower. He testified before Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Police about the rogue unit, the corruption, and the systematic retaliation he faced for trying to expose it — suspension, investigation, and illegal surveillance by the very officers he was trying to hold accountable.
The Kinnear case exists within a broader pattern: the murder of Babita Deokaran (August 2021) for investigating Gauteng Health procurement fraud, and numerous threats against investigators and prosecutors working on corruption cases. It demonstrates that in South Africa, investigating corruption can be a death sentence — and that the institutions meant to protect investigators are themselves compromised.
IPID's findings, under the leadership of Robert McBride (2014-2019), confirmed the existence of the rogue element within Crime Intelligence. But McBride himself was targeted — subjected to trumped-up charges, suspended, and ultimately had his contract non-renewed. His departure weakened the very oversight mechanism that might have prevented Kinnear's murder.