Project name: AL3283
Date of interview: 25 February 2010
Location of interview: Centurion, Pretoria
Language/s of interview: English
Length of interview: 9 minutes 38 seconds
Name of Interviewer: De Wet Potgieter
Name of interviewee/s: Detective Warrant Officer Drummond Hammond
Name of translator (if any): De Wet Potgieter
Name of transcriber:
Notes on access and use (if any):
Audio file name/s of interview: AL3283_PTA_HAMMONDDRUMMOND_20100225_1
De Wet
This is Tuesday 25th of February, Centurion I am sitting here with former detective warrant officer Drummond Hammond who was attached to the organised crime unit's intelligence unit in Pretoria, Northern Transvaal region. Drummond what I really want to talk to you about is the intelligence networks running from South Africa to the neighboring countries did the ANC as an organisation used it for crime purposes or I were these smuggling routes used in those days.
Drummond
Well, look individuals may have smuggled, but not as an organisation we never picked up information that the ANC per se were smuggling, but individuals did, but that was for their own gain. We all used the same routes, the smugglers, the South African intelligence services all of them together and the ANC. They used to smuggle their weapons on those routes, your smugglers would obviously bring in the drugs and stolen vehicles in the night and we used those routes to, you know, catch up on them. So we all used the same routes, but the ANC per se weren't smuggling. They were fighting a revolutionary war but they weren't smuggling. There were individuals that we identified and targeted for smuggling purposes but that was only for personal gain.
De Wet
Were there any well known people involved in this
Drummond
Well, off the top of my head I remember a very, very big soccer boss. He was involved, but I do not know how connected in those days he was with the ANC. He may be connected with the ANC now, but that was probably also for personal reasons. In those days he did it for his own pocket, purely for his own pocket. And we actually linked him to a murder that took place in Swaziland and the Kenyan police actually put us on his trail and he connected directly to the big drug smugglers.
De Wet
Did the South African intelligence services in those day did they used these smuggling routes, did they use the crime syndicates for intelligence gathering as well.
Drummond
Yes, both of us did. The ANC would use it for getting their stuff over because it is easy, the guys know routes and that, and we used it to catch them. In our job we used it, the smuggling routes, to identify the smugglers and then nail them. But, ja, we used, they were the prostitutes as always, they were the prostitutes in the industry wherever there was a buck to be made they make it. Ja, and so they did.
De Wet
So it was a means to an end for intelligence purposes.
Drummond
Oh, yes.
Project name: AL3283
Date of interview: 25 February 2010
Location of interview: Centurion, Pretoria
Language/s of interview: English
Length of interview: 9 minutes 38 seconds
Name of Interviewer: De Wet Potgieter
Name of interviewee/s: Detective Warrant Officer Drummond Hammond
Name of translator (if any): De Wet Potgieter
Name of transcriber:
Notes on access and use (if any):
Audio file name/s of interview: AL3283_PTA_HAMMONDDRUMMOND_20100225_2
De Wet
It is Tuesday 25th of February. I am sitting in Centurion with former detective warrant officer Drummond Hammond who was attached to the Northern Transvaal intelligence unit of the organised crime section of the police. He operated from Pretoria. Drummie, I just want to find out there was one guy, well known and very mysterious guy was involved in your unit. His nickname was "Dad". Can you tell me what his real name, where he came from was; tell us a bit more about Dad because he was a very charismatic person.
Drummond
Dad's real name was Steve Burnett, he came from England, he was in the British army, ended up coming to South Africa and working originally with operation Barnacle and then we recruited him into the South African police as a deep cover agent and where he did sterling work and then after the 1990 unbanning of the ANC, the security branch and the release of Madiba, we recruited him over to be our very first agent and he was actually brilliant arguably the best agent we had, that OCIU had and he was responsible for a lot of our very big and major busts you know, and he sat in jail for us, just to show the mark of the man, he sat in jail for the South African government for about three and a half years in Botswana after a botching attempt on the life of Ronnie Watson and he never blew his cover , never told anybody who he really was working for. He confused them because he told the Brits he was a loner, he told the Botswanans he was working for the Brits, and he told the South Africans he was working for Botswana. So he just confused the whole issue. Everyone suspected him to be working for the South Africans. No one ever did and he never blew his cover and because him sitting in jail he actually got into that's how we actually caught Cisse Fode. And Cisse Fode was recognized as the biggest trafficker of Mandrax in the world. He was known as Fode of Nairobi and we nailed him because he was also in jail at that time and by pure coincidence happened to sit in the same cell as Fode's brother-in-law. And he introduced him to Fode. That made a huge impact; it turned the Mandrax price overnight, the street price from R5 bulk into R15 bulk. Just because of the work that he did. But in any case going back to Watson, Ronnie, I am not sure if he was actually tasked to bump Ronnie off or if he just decided to do it on his own and worked independently to prove a point. But the big thing was he wanted to first talk to Ronnie and find out what he knew and then bumped him off. And of course, it has become a bit of a joke because he said at the time when I met the oke and I point the gun at him I realised that he had no military training because he kept on calling my pistol a revolver and he couldn't figure out how it worked when he actually got it off me and he just beat him shitless and had him arrested. Years afterwards after the election, well, even before the election, in 1994 Dad expressed to me he'd loved to meet Ronnie and made no TRC or big thing, but just say to Ron, look all was fair in love and war, I am sorry what I did and he never got the opportunity because obviously he died before and prematurely before he could set up a meeting with Mister Watson. But that was one of his great dreams in life was to meet Ronnie and say; look all's fair, but I got klapped and I am glad in those days nothing other happened to both of us and, ja, he was responsible for the brining down of Cisse Fode, of a very big Chinese Triad murder syndicate, I can carry on this Mafka gang. He worked on international cocaine operation that was the very first purely international operation we ever did. He worked on that with me. So, ja, Dad was great he was a good policeman, very dedicated, very professional. And he loved this country and he wanted to do the best. I think that was that caught up to him. He was too professional. And he loved the country to much and it was that if he was spat out and that is what lead to his untimely death.
De Wet
How did he die?
Drummond
He bumped himself with a Glock, a 45, Ja, he bumped himself, he topped himself