Security Branch

The Security Branch of the South African Police, established in 1947 as the Special Branch, was the security police apparatus of the apartheid state in South Africa. From the 1960s to the 1980s, it was one of the three main state entities responsible for intelligence gathering, the others being the Bureau for State Security and the Military Intelligence division of the South African Defence Force. In 1987, at its peak, the Security Branch accounted for only thirteen percent of police personnel, but it wielded great influence as the "elite" service of the police.