The state capture inquiry has heard that some journalists were allegedly on the payroll of Crime Intelligence and money was forked out of the division's secret service account to either have stories published or retracted.

This was according to Crime Intelligence officer Col Dhanajaya Naidoo, who told the inquiry on Monday that he had knowledge of at least three incidents where journalists were paid or benefited in some way from the secret service account.

Naidoo is in witness protection after turning whistleblower in 2011 and penning various affidavits to the Hawks which outlined the looting of the account. He was testifying in camera from a remote location.

He said it was around 2009 or 2010, when Richard Mdluli headed Crime Intelligence, that Mdluli told him he was meeting a journalist. The journalist, according to what Mdluli apparently told Naidoo, had information on Crime Intelligence that "would have been detrimental if it was published".

Naidoo said about R20,000 was used from the secret service account to pay off the journalist (whose name he did not know).