Former South African Revenue Service (SARS) executive Johann van Loggerenberg says a recent BBC report about British American Tobacco (BAT) allegedly sabotaging and spying on rivals in southern Africa was "independent confirmation" of what he had long been saying about corruption and state capture in the local tobacco industry for years.
According to the BBC, the tobacco giant allegedly used illegal surveillance in an attempt to "damage rivals", work it outsourced to a South African company called Forensic Security Services (FSS). The BBC also reported that BAT allegedly paid a bribe to the late former president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe.
The BBC said the investigation, which it conducted jointly with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the University of Bath, was based on thousands of new leaked documents.