A former police officer has been sentenced to six years in prison for having 40,000 packs of illicit cigarettes.
Image: 123RF/Allan Swart
A former police officer was on Wednesday sentenced to six years in prison after he was convicted of possessing illicit cigarettes and failing to provide documentation upon request by a SA Revenue Service (Sars) official.
The Mitchells Plain regional court also convicted Jerome Claud Hendricks, who was a warrant officer, of obstructing the course of justice and accepting gratification to convince the police not to stop and search the vehicle transporting the illicit cigarettes.
Prosecutor Jacobus Hough successfully argued against a correctional supervision sentence recommended by a probation officer.
Hendricks, who was attached to the railway police national mobile train unit in Johannesburg, was charged with having 40,000 illicit packets of Kingdom cigarettes, failure to produce proof of purchase, obstruction of justice and corruption.
The state told the court that Hendricks’ criminal activities had a potential loss of R474,344 of tax not declared. The state seized the illicit cigarettes.
Police arrested Hendricks and three other men just outside Beaufort West as they were transporting the cigarettes from Johannesburg to Cape Town on the evening of February 12, 2011.
The accused was dressed in full police uniform, a battle jacket with a bulletproof vest, stun grenades and an extra magazine for his pistol, and was driving a sedan with flashing blue and red lights, National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson Eric Ntabazalila said.
Hendricks told the two police officers he was from the national intervention unit of the police, and was busy with an operation, escorting an exhibit to Cape Town.
Hendricks and his accomplices were arrested after the alleged operation could not be verified.
Hough said the accused did not accept responsibility for his corrupt actions and maintained his innocence.
Hough said the public was starting to lose faith in organisations that should protect them from corruption, and demanding that the police, the prosecuting authority and the courts lead by example.
Western Cape director of public prosecutions Nicolette Bell applauded the prosecution team, members of Sars and members of the police who ensured that corruption is rooted out and that perpetrators are sent to prison.
“We will stop at nothing in holding those most responsible for corruption as we rebuild the rule of law.
“Corruption threatens the economic stability of our country and as the NPA we have undertaken that we take the profit out of crime,” Bell said.
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