Mr Malema has denied any wrongdoing and says the fund is a charity that
supports different causes.
"We are obtaining the crucial information we would need. It is about
allegations of corruption around the trust fund," McIntosh Polela,
spokesman for an elite police unit known as the Hawks, told Reuters.
Mr Polela said police were collecting information to see if further
investigation was required but declined to say what avenues they were
pursuing. The Sunday Times newspaper reported the police had approached
banks and bile phone companies for Mr Malema's records.
Mr Malema's racially-charged appeals to the poor black majority have raised
concerns among investors about whether the ANC will take up his calls for an
overhaul of Africa's largest economy.
Corruption is a major concern in South
Africa. A police raid last week on the mines department and a firm
linked to President Jacob Zuma's son has highlighted allegations that
political connections are used to amass wealth.
As ANC Youth League leader, Mr Malema has no direct policymaking power. But
the League, co-founded by Nelson Mandela, has long been a training ground
for the leadership, and he is an influential powerbroker.
Mr Malema, 30, denied allegations of graft and wrongdoing on Sunday. "From
where I am sitting I am comfortable and I don't need a bribe ... There was
nothing I was hiding from the trust," he was quoted as saying by the
South African Press Association. "I'm not scared of jail. You can
arrest me, but you can't arrest my ideas."
Several newspapers carried separate stories on Sunday detailing new
allegations about the lavish lifestyle and property deals of Mr Malema, who
has called for mines to be nationalised and white-owned farms to be seized.
Mr Malema, who was born into poverty, lists as a main source of income his
salary as the head of the Youth League, which is a few thousand dollars a
month.
he had denied the trust was used for receiving bribes and said media reports
probing his finances were "the imaginations of right-wing,
narrow-minded and obsessed white people".
