Latest: Corruption and Money Laundering.

SARS Wars: Massive data leak alleges British American Tobacco SA's role in bribery and corruption.

• MARIANNE THAMM
  
  
   
 
• SOUTH AFRICA
 
• 16 AUG 2016 01:15 (SOUTH AFRICA)

Craig Williamson, one of apartheid’s most ruthless spies and assassins, is one of many “agents” named in a massive data leak posted on a Twitter account, @EspionageSA, and which points to wide-scale industrial espionage, fraud, racketeering, corruption and bribery by agents representing and working on behalf of British American Tobacco SA (BATSA). While the allegations are not new, the explosive documents reveal how members of SAPS, the State Security Agency, the Hawks and SARS were drawn into BATSA’s attempts to eliminate competition in South Africa. These actions ultimately led to the destabilisation of SARS and the purging of its top executive structure in 2014. By MARIANNE THAMM.

The anonymous holder of the Twitter account SATobacco Espionage @EspionageSA signed up on 4 August, describing the account’s intention to “expose Industrial Espionage Money Laundering in Tobacco Industry by Corporate Company British American Tobacco”. The account’s first post referenced a WikiSpooks entry on notorious apartheid assassin, Craig Williamson, described by @EspionageSA as “Handler to the Dis-grunted [sic] Ex Employee of FSS (Forensic Security Services) Francois van Der Westhuizen”.

Today Williamson describes himself on his LinkedIn profile as an “Independent Tobacco Professional”. Williamson – who, among many other atrocities, orchestrated the murder of academic and activist Ruth First, sending her a parcel bomb in Maputo in 1982, and who sent a letter bomb which killed trade unionist Jeanette Schoon and her daughter Katryn in northern Angola in 1984 – was granted amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission...

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