The Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks) officers stored 541kg of cocaine worth about R200m seized in Durban 100km away in Port Shepstone, where it was stolen, without factually checking if Durban police stations had capacity, the Madlanga commission heard on Thursday. Hawks Durban serious organised crime investigation unit commander Col Gavin Jacob testified at the commission that the decision to store the drugs in Port Shepstone was an instruction from his superior, Brig Msizi Nyuswa. Nyuswa made the call after Jacob informed him he had exhausted all avenues and sought assistance for storage of the large seizure of drugs. During cross examination, Jacob, however, conceded his statement to Nyuswa about exhausting avenues was not factually correct because he did not inquire with three nearby stations about storage capacity on the day of the operation, June 22 2021. “You lied to him when you said you exhausted all avenues, that was not factually correct,” commission chair Mbuyiseli Madlanga put to Jacob. Jacob described the word “lie” from Madlanga as strong but conceded his statement to Nyuswa was not factually correct. He, however, said he never suggested the drugs be stored outside of Durban but wanted Nyuswa to speak to senior officers and find a solution. The storage of the seizure is crucial for the commission probing allegations that police officers have links to drug cartels, as Hawks Maj-Gen Hendrik Flynn, who investigated the theft, testified it “was by design” the drugs were stored in Port Shepstone. Jacob, despite admitting missteps in the operation, pushed back against inferences that could be made from Flynn’s statement on his part that it was not by “design” by him for the drugs to be stored in Port Shepstone only to be stolen five months later.To prove this, Jacob said he was the one who ensured police were in contact with a key whistleblower with credible information about the theft. He denied any role in the theft of drugs and referenced a polygraph test that cleared him. The polygraph test, however, was found to have had several errors. Jacob said he made the call to Nyuswa about the storage issue based on past experiences with local stations not wanting to store large drugs in their stations. He cited an incident where drugs were previously stored in a holding cell due to a local station having exhibit space constraints and another where mandrax drugs had to be hastily moved from a station after police officers became sick due to the presence of the narcotics. In circumstances where the police stations have capacity, he said they inundate him with calls because the drugs do not get moved to the forensic laboratory for months, due to space, and it becomes a headache for police station commanders because they occupy exhibit storage space for a long time.Based on that experience, Jacob said he wanted Nyuswa to resolve the storage issue. The issue of storage in nearby stations on the day of the operation was contradicted by the storage of 999kg of cocaine stored in Maydon Wharf Police Station in Durban, on July 30 2021 — a month after Jacob’s seizure of the 541kg of cocaine. Jacob said the 999kg was possibly accommodated in Maydon Wharf because the police operation fell within their precinct, while the seizure of the 541kg was under Isipingo Police Station, at which the station commander allegedly declined to keep the large exhibits. Jacob denied that the storage of drugs in Port Shepstone was by choice. “It was not by choice. I made an assumption [on Durban police stations’ storage capacity] based on my past experience and not on fact,” Jacob said. Jacob said while the police policy states exhibits should be stored at a local police station, the “reality on the ground” was that police struggled to book large exhibits in police stations due to storage or security reasons. He cited two cases in which he had to organise a container and place it in a police station to store exhibits, and how even then, everything was stolen. Jacob described the theft of drugs as an “embarrassment” for the Hawks, which has sparked internal distrust among officers.