When the case of a man who escaped from a North West prison in 2010 while serving an eight-year sentence remained unsolved and was later relegated to the cold case unit, it took Sgt Morongwa Koboekae a few days to find the prisoner.
When Koboekae traced the man, he was serving a life sentence at Upington Prison in the Northern Cape for a rape and murder committed shortly after escaping from Rooigrond Prison in Mahikeng.
For the Gauteng-born detective, tracing criminals is more than a job, it is a calling she followed with conviction in 2011 when she joined the SA Police Service (SAPS).
It was meticulous work days of matching data, revisiting old evidence and verifying identities.
— Sgt Morongwa Koboekae
“I grew up wanting to be the type of police officer who solves cases. I was never driven by the love of money,” she said.
“I wanted to protect people and I knew investigations were my strength.”
For 13 years, Koboekae built a solid reputation in Gauteng as a specialist in tracing wanted suspects, from fraudsters and rapists to housebreaking syndicates. She worked with fingerprints, DNA and national databases, quietly becoming one of the detectives who cracked cases that seemed impossible.
Three months ago, Koboekae, who spent her entire policing career in Gauteng, relocated to Mahikeng to be closer to her family.
Shortly after settling in, she was given the Mahikeng police station’s wanted list and the SAPS national wanted list.
Police had been looking for them for years without breakthroughs and Koboekae got to work immediately.
Using her forensic tracing skills, she started cross-checking old fingerprints, DNA hits and archived case files with the profiles of prisoners in correctional centres across the country.
“It was meticulous work days of matching data, revisiting old evidence and verifying identities.”
She had to go through the police database system looking for individuals using their prison identification.
Finally, she got a hit. The man who had escaped in 2010, two years before Koboekae became a police officer, was in a prison in the Northern Cape.
“He was on the run for a short time, but we never knew where he resurfaced or under what identity,” she said.
“When I linked his fingerprints to the 2010 escape file, everything aligned.”
With the confirmation in hand, she closed a 15-year-old escape case in a matter of days.
She went on to find another escapee, Edward Khomotso Madiba, 36. He had escaped from Rooigrond in 2022 while serving 20 years for aggravated robbery and unlawful possession of a firearm. Koboekae found him serving another sentence at a Johannesburg prison.
She also managed to find another who escaped from Rooigrond in 2022 while serving a life sentence for rape and housebreaking.
Koboekae traced him to Bethal Correctional Centre, where he had been detained on a separate case.
According to Koboekae, their escape profiles were never linked to their later arrests.
“In all three cases, the individuals were back in prison under different case numbers,” she said.
“The system doesn’t always automatically link escape files with new arrests. Someone must go back and match the evidence manually. That was my job.”
In 2023, Koboekae received a commendation certificate from the national police commissioner, one of the proudest moments of her policing career.
She had assisted the serious crime unit in Ekurhuleni in profiling a repeat offender who had been in and out of the system for some time because victims kept withdrawing their cases.
“I saw on his profile that he would be arrested and then go out again. All the cases were withdrawn,” she said.
“When he was arrested again, we made sure the case was solid. This time he was convicted and sentenced to 15 years,” she said.
The suspect had been involved in “bank following” robberies, targeting people who had withdrawn money and ambushing them at gunpoint.
Koboekae said many victims withdrew their cases because they believed they would never get their money or belongings back, or they felt the court process took too long.
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