Investigations · 2024–2026
Eighteen articles for GroundUp News
Grant fraud, pyramid schemes, money mules, SIM card registration, data breaches, and the security of government’s own websites and apps.
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The redactor
Gauteng’s e-Panic app
2 parts · 2026How Gauteng’s new panic app exposed your data
Reports about domestic violence and assault, including images and locations, could be accessed by a tech-savvy computer user
DA to report e-Panic data breach to Information Regulator
A week since we reported it, the Gauteng government has said nothing
The department called it an attack by “a highly specialised organisation”. It wasn’t. We downloaded the app and looked. GroundUp’s editors replied in Gauteng government thinks we are hackers. We are not.
The Morita Forestry scam
3 parts · 2026South Africans lose hundreds of millions of rands to Morita Forestry investment scam
Social media influencers helped make the scam possible, and were rewarded handsomely
How police lent credibility to the Morita pyramid scheme
And so did the Forestries department and a municipality
The story of a money mule, and how she helped the R511-million Morita scam
Now she fears for her life
Government websites
4 parts · with Nathan Geffen · 2026The state says its computer systems are secure. We looked. They’re not
SITA’s internet services have more than 5,000 security flaws
Wild goats and open gates: government’s websites are asking to be hacked
Government websites outside SITA’s network carry more than 4,400 security flaws. One in every five servers is vulnerable
Do you need something from a government website? Good luck!
We found duplicate sites, bizarrely-designed sites, and so much out-of-date information
How to fix government’s websites
This is an opportunity for Minister Solly Malatsi to show leadership
Scams, mules and gambling
Exposing a syndicate — by getting scammed
And how we were let down by a bank and the police
Five gambling myths that may bankrupt you
Social media posts, often by paid influencers, are coercing people into giving up even more of their money to betting companies
Explainer: How “money mule” scams work
We asked the banks what they are doing to combat this type of fraud
Banks, SIM cards and RICA
New bank takes swift action after GroundUp alerts it to data breach
But the Information Regulator is missing in action
SIM card provider dodges law
uConnect issues free SIM cards without verifying identity or address, as required by RICA
me&you mobile removes eSIMs from its website
But action from government is needed too
This mobile provider is failing to implement RICA law
me&you mobile allows eSIMs to be activated within minutes using false information
SASSA grant fraud
2024We discovered massive fraud in SASSA’s grant system
SASSA needs to disclose how this happened and the scale of the problem
Social grant fraud: SASSA needs to act, not deny
Instead of wrongly accusing us of illegal hacking, SASSA should take urgent action to fix the extremely serious problems we described
For the record, there was no hacking involved. We only looked at what the system was already showing anyone who asked.