Cape Town - Vehicle and licensing experts have unlocked the door linking the brother of alleged underworld kingpin Nafiz Modack to a Mercedes-Benz allegedly used to carry out the hit on a Hawks detective.
Testimony by an employee linked to Mercedes-Benz South Africa and the SA Insurance Crime Bureau (ICB) in the Western Cape High Court revealed the details of an intensive probe by the Hawks to trace the vehicle’s origins.
This comes amid explosive testimony by a self-confessed hitman who told the court that Modack supplied a black Mercedes-Benz in a plot to murder Hawks detective Nico Heerschap. During the botched hit, his 74-year-old father, Nicholaas, was shot dead.
According to the State’s case, Modack’s co-accused, Fagmeed Kelly, was later arrested in Woodstock with the key to the vehicle, which was set alight shortly after the murder.
A former Mercedes-Benz employee, Kim Rogers, told the court she was contacted by the Hawks in April 2022 to test the key found in Kelly’s possession. She explained that the key was sent to Germany to obtain the VIN number of the vehicle.
Rogers was followed by Andrew Strumpher of the ICB, who said he was given the VIN number by the Hawks and asked to track the car’s details. The specialised Natis profiler told the court that the registration number had provided clues to the car’s ownership.
He said according to the reports obtained on the Mercedes-Benz, it was found that it was first released into the market by the manufacturer in 2011 and registered.
Strumpher said it was found that a temporary permit was issued by the Sugar Berry Trading car dealership to Yaseen Modack in May 2019.
He noted that on July 9, 2019, the day of the Heerschap murder, the car was marked as stolen by the police on the Natis system, but strangely it was found that the vehicle had already been stolen in November 2018 and the matter had been reported to the Kuils River SAPS.
The trial continues.
Cape Argus