CIA spy claims resurface as corruption scandals grip SA

New allegations from recent hearings echo old disputes involving Jacob Zuma and the Scorpions, as people facing questions point to foreign operatives to explain the growing pressure around them.

- By Caryn Dolley

We might unknowingly rub shoulders with US-deployed Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives, and spies from other countries in SA.

It would be naïve to think that if international drug-trafficking gangs operate in and via this country, the spooks don't too.

And if claims emanating from certain individuals are to be believed, some CIA agents have recruited figures who hold - or have held - powerful positions in SA's government, especially in law enforcement.

This isn't totally implausible. But weakening the "American spies among us" accusations is that they have repeatedly surfaced, in similar scenarios, to the point that they have now almost become a trend.

The latest claims of US spook infiltration have seeped out of South Africa's gigantic law enforcement scandal.

Before we get there, though, let's start with disgraced former president Jacob Zuma, who headed the ANC's intelligence department decades ago. This saga involves the Directorate of Special Operations, better known as the Scorpions, which came about in the late 1990s to fight high-level organised crime and corruption.

Zuma, suspected of corruption in the arms deal saga that dates to the late 1990s, claimed to have come across information that Scorpions head Leonard McCarthy was a CIA snoop.

A portion of a 2021 high court judgment in this matter said Zuma alleged that he had "been advised of very damaging information relating to how McCarthy was in regular contact with intelligence operatives of foreign governments in which he freely discussed my prosecution with them".

This, the judgment said, referred to McCarthy "allegedly having been an intelligence operative handled by a [CIA] agent".

But it was found that these claims were "speculative conclusions without any factual basis".