Detective-Constable Siphiwo Nteta from Lwandle has been named the country’s best detective.
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Detective-Constable Siphiwo Nteta from Lwandle tracks down some of the country’s most ruthless criminals and makes sure they land up behind bars.
Now, Nteta, 30, has been named the country’s best detective.
He was previously named the provincial detective of the year and has twice received the accolade for “catch of the year” for helping to arrest some of the city’s worst criminals.
In November 2011, he nabbed Anathi Ngcukana who was on the province’s top-10 most-wanted list for three murder charges and six charges of attempted murder.
Nteta explained that Ngcukana absconded while on bail.
“We tracked him to the Eastern Cape but then he moved to Joburg then Durban before we found out that he was back in in Nyanga.”
All nine cases are back in court, six of them in the Western Cape High Court while the rest are in the regional court in Strand.
Nteta said he always wanted to be a policeman, especially a detective.
He is also responsible for putting syndicate leader Lulama Yedwa in jail for 36 years.
“Yedwa ran a syndicate that robbed local businesses like shebeens and spaza shops. They stole anything from R36 000 to even R90 000 a night.”
He said that Yedwa had been arrested after a robbery in 2009.
“It was June 16 and I arrived on the scene and saw two men walking close to the shebeen who fitted the profile of the people who had been robbing the businesses in the area. I drove towards them and they ran away. I managed to arrest one of them. Then after an identity parade, he was identified as the leader of the syndicate because while the others wore balaclavas he often showed his face in the shebeens.”
Nteta is married and said that his wife understood that he often had to work long hours.
“Some weekends I don’t even sleep or sometimes I drive home and get to the gate, only to drive back out again because there is a lead on a case I am working on. Sometimes I even forget to eat,” he said with a laugh.
But he finds the job fulfilling and likes working with his colleague, constable Zwelidumile Dzingwe, who was his partner when they won the “catch of the year” award in 2009 for arresting four people wanted in connection with murder.
“They had run away to the Eastern Cape but we managed to track them down and bring them back to Cape Town.”
Over the years Nteta has received death threats but he said these did not scare him because he knew what he was doing.
Police spokesman Tembinkosi Kinana described Nteta as dedicated, consistent and committed.
neo.maditla@inl.co.za
Cape Argus