Cape Town - Tommy Prins, 46, one of the founding members of the Office for Serious Economic Offences, was recently appointed to head the Western Cape Directorate for Special Operations, or Scorpions.
The appointment follows the amalgamation of the Investigative Directorate of Serious Economic Offences and the Investigative Directorate of Organised Crime. Appointments for that position had already been made in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and East London.
Prins said on Friday that his appointment brought with it
a lot more responsibility to investigate serious offences, particularly serious economic offences, organised crime and corruption.
He said the strength of the combined offices could be found in the multidisciplinary approach of investigations in which the services of lawyers, investigators, analysts and accountants were combined.
Prins said there was a common misconception that the Scorpions was a police unit. However, it was anything but and was under the justice department, he said.
"I'm looking forward to the challenge ... It's going to be demanding."
Prins was confident that the Scorpions would be well resourced and capable of dealing with whatever challenges that might come along. A number of vacancies would be filled soon, especially those for lawyers.
The Scorpions was also building an in-house forensic accounting capacity countrywide, thus enhancing its ability to deal with the offences it was required to investigate in terms of its legal mandate.
Prins completed his studies at the University of Stellenbosch and was a prosecutor in the magistrate's court for 11 months before joining the Cape's office of the attorney-general, where he served for 12 years.
In 1992 he became a deputy attorney-general and was appointed as the founder head of the Cape Town Office for Serious Economic Offences, which had a small core of advocates, policemen and accountants.
While Prins was in office several high-profile cases were investigated by his staff, including the multimillion-rand collapse of Fundstrust; charges of fraud and theft against Allan Boesak as head of the Foundation for Peace and Justice; and charges of fraud and theft against Abe Williams, the former MEC for welfare in the Western Cape.