SA digital forensics, open-source intelligence skills lacking in fight against corruption
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In 2020 South Africans called for a year of ‘orange overalls’ in the hope that those accused of grand corruption such as state capture and Steinhoff accounting fraud would be wearing prison attire after being prosecuted. Disappointingly, this has not happened.
State capture is alleged to have resulted in around R500-billion of public money being stolen during Jacob Zuma’s nine years as president, ending in 2018. The Steinhoff saga reportedly involved over R100-billion in fraudulent and irregular transactions between 2009 and 2016.
For law enforcement in South Africa, it may be worth giving more attention to social media and open-source intelligence. This refers to publicly available information typically on the internet used to investigate commercial and financial crimes.