Following the disbandment of the Scorpions in 2007, Sars set out to establish its own intelligence-gathering unit, purportedly to counter illicit financial flows.
This unit assumed many names as it sought to legitimise its existence. Sars managed to persuade the courts there was nothing sinister about this unit, established with the best interests of South Africa’s socio-economic development trajectory at heart.
Several employees at that time believed the unit had been established with ultra vires intentions of disturbing the developing political discourse of the time. Consequently, they blew the whistle on the unit.
The battle to legitimise the unit became a 14-year protracted, messy affair that was finally laid to rest last year with a Constitutional Court judgment. While some people were fired for activities related to the unit, others were reinstated
