South Africa’s most important crime witness isn’t human. It’s a smartphone.

When investigators at the Madlanga Commission , a South African judicial anti-corruption inquiry, projected WhatsApp conversations extracted from seized mobile phones onto courtroom screens, they were doing far more than reading private messages. They were attempting to reconstruct alleged criminal networks. Every message, timestamp, contact list and call log became another thread in what investigators argue is a sprawling web linking senior police officers, politicians, businesspeople and alleg