Former City of Cape Town Mayco Member Malusi Booi who was fired from his job is set to make his first appearance in court today after being busted on corruption charges linked to alleged 28s gang boss Ralph Stanfield.
Nearly a year after his offices were raided and his electronic equipment seized, cops nabbed Booi, 46, at his home in the Eastern Cape on Monday night.
Booi who was the former Mayco member for the Human Settlements department was suspended by mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis in March last year after it was revealed that cops had launched an investigation into an alleged R700 million mega-fraud case.
According to a source at the municipality, Booi’s arrest comes amid a probe into links between City officials, and construction companies owned by underworld figures such as Stanfield and his wife Nicole Johnson.
The investigation came to light after City Manager Lungelo Mbadazayo blacklisted Johnson’s companies.
Earlier this year, he revealed that a handwriting expert found that one person had filled in all the tender forms of rival bidders, pointing to tender collusion.
The source says this is the basis for Booi’s arrest.
“It was suspected that he (Booi) was feeding tenders to Stanfield’s construction companies by using officials in the Human Settlements department and that is why the cops also arrested City of Cape Town officials on Monday.”
According to a search warrant in possession of the Daily Voice, cops also swooped on properties owned by Stanfield, Johnson and Jerome Booysen.
Police spokesperson, Brigadier Novela Potelwa, says eight people have been arrested as part of a protracted investigation into alleged fraudulent and corrupt activities at the City of Cape Town’s human settlements directorate.
“The Western Cape SAPS commercial crimes unit detectives with the Anti Gang Unit’s organised crime investigators swooped on a location in the Eastern Cape where they arrested a 46 year old suspect on Monday evening. The arrest follows an investigation initiated by commercial crimes detectives that saw the investigators descending on the City of Cape Town offices in March 2023 and seizing a number of items as part of their probe.
“Meanwhile as this investigation unfolds, another team from the same police units also arrested three other suspects in Johannesburg early on Tuesday morning.With the take-down operation progressing four other suspects were also arrested in Cape Town on Tuesday,” said Potelwa.
The suspects are set to appear in the Cape Town Magistrate’s court today on charges relating to money laundering, racketeering, corruption and extortion fraud.