SOUTH African police caught more than they expected in a Cape Town drug raid when a strap-on dildo fell off a suspected crime lord during a search, the Sunday Times reported.

Fat Murphy, feared on the streets of Cape Town's notorious Cape Flats suburb, told a court that he is a hermaphrodite who holds male and female identity documents - one under the name Fadwaan, the other under Hilary.

Police and a tearful Murphy recounted the saga during a bail hearing for Murphy's charges of possession of stolen property, which come on top of earlier charges of kidnapping and intimidation, the paper said.

"I had a vagina that could not be penetrated. But I also had male organs, testes. But I always knew I was really a man and that was what I wanted to be," he told the court, according to the newspaper.

"God created me with both sexual organs. It was God's decision, not mine."

Murphy has been married twice - his second wife's name is tattooed on his arm. He said received his male identity documents after undergoing surgery to remove his female organs when he was in his teens, the paper said.

Police say Murphy offered them 9,100 rand ($1300) not to search him during the raid.

Police said they were investigating how Murphy obtained his male identity documents, saying they found no records of him undergoing sex change surgery.

Murphy was released on 300 rand ($43) bail.