Johannesburg - Suspended Sascoc CEO Tubby Reddy was spied on with surveillance equipment installed at his office and home, according to a leaked report News24 has seen.
Both Reddy and SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee CEO (Sascoc) president Gideon Sam confirmed on Thursday that a case about the alleged surveillance had been opened.
Police conducted interviews with Sam and removed some of Sascoc's computers.
Reddy was suspended on Wednesday until August 18. Sascoc has not disclosed the reasons, although a colleague recently accused Reddy of sexual harassment.
The report, prepared by SS Griffin Risk Management Services, was compiled after Reddy asked the company to sweep Sascoc's Olympic House offices in Melrose, Johannesburg.
'Clear challenge'
He did this, the report states, after Sam allegedly said in a staff meeting that he heard everything that happened in the office. Reddy claimed that staff who attended the meeting said Sam was recording them.
Reddy refused to come to the meeting, saying he was not asked to call staff to it.
Sam wrote him a letter saying what he had done was a "clear challenge to the authority of the board" and insubordination.
Reddy responded that he did not know why he had not been told about the meeting or asked to call staff to it, as that was his job as the CEO.
Reddy subsequently hired SS Griffin.
"It troubled my mind that the president could so brazenly declare that he had recordings of what people were saying in the office which is contrary to the POPI Act."
Reddy has been under investigation after he allegedly sent pornographic material to female colleagues.
It had been reported that he was not suspended for the sexual harassment complaint.
Bug sweep
According to Netwerk24, the Sascoc board suspended him because he allegedly did not follow proper labour practice when he appointed a company to investigate Sascoc staff.
A bug sweep was conducted on March 21 to see if the organisation was under any type of electronic surveillance.
According to SS Griffin's report, five active devices transmitting and receiving over GSM, 4G and Bluetooth were detected, mainly on the floor where the executive offices were situated, and particularly where Reddy and his staff sat. An unplugged desktop landline was transmitting a strong signal.
They removed five devices that had audio-visual recording capabilities and were capable of cross-platform communication using 3G, 4G, and Bluetooth.
The devices were hard to find as they could switch into standby mode when they picked up the use of detection equipment.
SS Griffin said they found surveillance equipment at Reddy's home. The SIM cards in the spy devices were registered to the MTN Nigerian network set up on roaming, making tracing them back to the user almost impossible.
The cellphones of several Sascoc staff had been compromised by an application identified as Heister mobile .
This is designed to hack into mobile phones to gain access to videos, pictures and applications including email, WhatsApp, and SMS messages.
"It could also record and listen to phone calls and turn on the camera and microphones in stealth mode meaning the owner would have no knowledge that the camera or microphone were on and recording," the report states.
Access
The application could toggle geolocation settings and record keystrokes to detect passwords the phone's owner was typing.
They were transmitting to a base station found hidden in the housing of unused armed response radio transmitters at Olympic House and Reddy's home.
Sascoc's IT network was compromised, indicating that whoever was behind it would have had internal access to install such devices. One employee's laptop was sending files to a Bluetooth device had numerous bugging devices on it.
The report states Reddy was being targeted by a group of people who wanted to take over Sascoc. These efforts included the sexual harassment claims recently made against him in the media.
"The facts are now all pointing to a group of individuals who have actively been attempting to cover up their involvement in shady double-dipping underhand deals .The unmistakable attempts thus far are to overthrow the CEO and to take control of Sascoc," the report reads.
"The same individuals have been conspiring, plotting and deploying dirty underhanded tactics that are being executed and carried out in a highly strategic manner that would seem to be mainly driven by one common political agenda."
Political parties are included in this alleged conspiracy against Reddy.
"This is all been for the purpose of putting Mr Reddy and the African National Congress on trial by way of the media to achieve their political objective, which will ensure that the Democratic Alliance takes control of sport, which will favour them amongst the sport conscious voters in South Africa."
The report appeared to contain no evidence of this.
Infighting
Infighting at Sascoc has become increasingly bizarre and included a hoax email in the sexual harassment allegation.
Sam laughed off the claim that he had said in a staff meeting that he was recording staff and that the DA was trying to take over Sascoc. He said he had not seen SS Griffin's report, but was aware of the spying allegations after police interviewed him.
"Reddy wrote to the board saying he had gone to the police. There is an allegation and we are following the process on it."
Sam said there were two separate investigations underway - one related to the spying allegations, and the other to Reddy's suspension, which he said involved "governance issues".
Reddy said in his opinion he was suspended due to the sexual harassment allegations, which were a fabrication.
He said claims of political interference came because of how Sascoc's board was elected in 2016. He said Sascoc's constitution was manipulated so that its board was mainly white.
"I don't know about the political party involvement," he said.
