Members of specialist police unit the Hawks trekked out to Coega on Tuesday with radar equipment and an excavator to dig up a portion of a now-defunct prawn farm once owned by controversial facilities management company Bosasa.
Carrying out what they called an intelligence-driven operation, the Hawks served a warrant to Coega Industrial Development Zone management at about 9am before commencing the dig.
The dig took place at the former billion-rand SeaArk prawn farm, situated in the Coega IDZ, about 5km from the Port of Ngqura.
National Hawks spokesperson Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi declined to say exactly what the unit was looking for.
"Based on intelligence, a warrant was obtained and the site excavated," he said.
"We can confirm that it appears there was a hole and that there was something buried there."
The team used an excavator to dig about 2m, where they noted the difference in soil content which was used as a filler.
"While the digging yielded nothing but proof that 'something' had been buried on the site, it comes just weeks after former Bosasa chief operating officer Angelo Agrizzi told the Zondo commission of inquiry into state capture that he and other Bosasa staff members had destroyed evidence of corruption and set it alight in a hole in Krugersdorp.
Agrizzi spent more than a week spilling the beans on alleged widespread bribery and corruption aimed at furthering Bosasa's business interests.
He has pointed the finger at the Bosasa boss, politically connected Gavin Watson, among other people.
Agrizzi told how incriminating documents and computers were destroyed – about a decade ago – ahead of a Special Investigating Unit (SIU) investigation into alleged corruption at Bosasa.
In an affidavit that has shocked the country, he detailed how Watson had allegedly instructed staff to collect documents and computers containing damning evidence and to destroy them.
He said that after collecting computers and documents, he and another staff member drove to the Luipaardsvlei hostel in Krugersdorp.
The hostel belonged to Bosasa and, at that stage, was being revamped and was a construction site.
It was located opposite Bosasa's offices.
"There was already an existing hole," Agrizzi said.
"We threw all the collected items into the hole."
He said a Bosasa employee had brought petrol, which was poured over the items and set alight.
After that, employees used a front-end loader to close up the hole.
According to Agrizzi, the invoices and records that were destroyed showed how Bosasa had allegedly picked up the tab for travel, accommodation and holidays for prominent government officials.
The site of Tuesday's dig took place in an area identified as the IDZ's Maritime and Aquaculture cluster.
It is situated between what used to be a pond and a building – near an access road.
Forensics experts mapped the area and used specialist equipment to gauge what was underground.
Mulaudzi said the excavation came after an intelligence-driven operation led investigators to the SeaArk facility.
"Our forensic specialists were brought in and confirmed that one section of ground had been disturbed," he said.
Radar equipment to gauge the depth of the hole was also used.
The dig was eventually abandoned when it became clear that what was once there had been moved.
"There was clearly a cavity there that had been filled."
The team dug past the cavity, but found nothing," Mulaudzi said.
He confirmed that something had been dumped at the site some 10 years ago, but declined to elaborate on what exactly it was.
Ten years ago, media interest in Bosasa was at its peak, with numerous articles published about alleged corruption.
SeaArk was launched in 2006 and was said to have attracted almost R9.2bn in investment before it was scrapped in December 2009.
At the time, Gavin Watson allegedly spent more than R300m on just the pilot project before pulling the plug.
The farm attracted international interest with its claim of state-of-the-art facilities and the first closed bio-secure farming system which could increase the productivity of prawns.