Breaking (very) Bad – More links between SA and global drug trafficking cartels exposed

A R2-billion drug laboratory bust on a farm in Limpopo with apparent ties to Mexico, the interception of cocaine in Brazil that may have been destined for Durban, and suspicions that Colombian traffickers are operating along South Africa’s coast show the country’s status as a player in the global drug trafficking arena.

These cases also point to confirmed and suspected links to countries known for drug crimes and cartel activities.

Daily Maverick has reported previously on various global trafficking kingpins who have operated via South Africa, their possible connections to political figures and how transnational crimes are connected to local gangs and suspects.

National police commissioner General Fannie Masemola, speaking during a visit by Interpol secretary-general Jürgen Stock this week, spoke highly of the recent drug takedown operations by the South African Police Service (SAPS).

“Nationally, we are sitting at more than 33 drug labs that have been successfully shut down in the country in the past 12 months,” Masemola said. “Since October 2023, police in KwaZulu-Natal have also confiscated cocaine worth more than R1-billion at the province’s sea ports.”

Contributor to violent crime

Masemola acknowledged that “drugs are one of the biggest contributors to violent crimes such as murders, rape and hijackings”. He said this was why the SAPS was “focused on working with law enforcement partners such as Interpol to eradicate the illicit trade plaguing our region and continent”.

During his visit, Stock gave the police mobile devices that he said could be used “to verify whether someone is entering the country using a stolen passport, or whether a vehicle has been reported stolen somewhere else in the world”. He said the goal was for the devices to facilitate and expand cross-border investigations.

Daily Maverick has established that several drug breakthroughs in recent weeks have resulted in arrests in South Africa of individuals from Mexico, Russia and Brazil. Matters involving the world’s main producer of cocaine, Colombia, have also emerged.

Daily Maverick can also reveal that cocaine recently discovered at a Brazilian port was destined for South Africa and showed similarities to previous stashes that were seized in Durban. Transnational traffickers operating via South Africa seem to favour using that harbour.

Busting Mexicans in Limpopo

In a case that has made international news, four suspects were arrested on Friday, 19 July, after the Hawks in Limpopo were tipped off about suspicious activities on a farm in Groblersdal. A fifth suspect was arrested two days later.

“Four structures on the property were searched and large quantities of chemicals used in the manufacturing of illicit drugs, including acetone, as well as crystal meth with an estimated street value of R2-billion, were recovered,” said Hawks spokesperson Colonel Katlego Mogale.

Four of the suspects – Mexican citizens Gonzales Jorge and Gutierrez Lopes, and South Africans Simphiwe Khumalo and Frederick Botha – appeared in the Groblersdal regional court on Monday. The fifth accused, Ruben Vidal Rodriguez, who some reports claim is also Mexican, first appeared in court on Tuesday.

In Mexico, organised crime linked to drug smuggling is a ruthless business. Mexico City’s police operations chief, Milton Morales Figueroa, was shot dead on Sunday, 21 July, in one of the latest shootings of officials.

Earlier this month, Daily Maverick reported that former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández was jailed for 45 years in the US for being “at the centre of one of the largest and most violent drug-trafficking conspiracies in the world”.

According to the US government’s case against Hernández, he and his associates had partnered with Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera, the leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, the world’s largest drug-trafficking gang.

A photograph, which US authorities viewed as authentic, of Hernández with cocaine traffickers at the 2010 Fifa World Cup in South Africa was shown during his trial. It placed some of the world’s top-tier traffickers with ties to the Sinaloa Cartel in the country. (This week in the US El Chapo’s son Joaquin Guzman Loera, and an associate of his, Ismael Zambada, were arrested.)

A good day for drug busts

Meanwhile, on the same day the SAPS raided the Groblersdal farm, two other prominent drug busts took place in the Western Cape and Gauteng, respectively.

In Still Bay, about two hours from Cape Town, officers followed up on information about suspicious activities at the harbour. While headed there, they spotted a vehicle with an inflatable rubber boat on its trailer, which matched a description in the information they had received.

“The vehicle sped off and a chase ensued,” a police statement said.

Police officers managed to bring the vehicle  to a standstill and the occupants jumped out and tried to run away. However, the two male occupants, one from Gauteng and a Russian citizen, were arrested. When officers searched the boat, they discovered 400 bricks of cocaine worth R252-million.

In Gauteng, a Brazilian man, Risclif Tadue Ramos, was arrested after landing at OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg when 4kg of cocaine was allegedly found wrapped around his body.

Daily Maverick has reported extensively on drug trafficking between South Africa and Brazil. At the end of last year, over a period of about two months, South African police seized cocaine worth more than R360-million that had arrived from Brazil.

Images from an interception of cocaine worth R151-million at Durban harbour in December showed that the drug was packed in boxes depicting owls.

The same packaging was also spotted in a cocaine consignment from Brazil that was seized at the trade port at King Shaka International Airport in October.

Meanwhile, in Brazil, officers attached to the country’s Federal Revenue Service discovered two suitcases with 78.5kg of cocaine on 24 June.

Traffickers at the Port of Paranaguá, where cocaine destined for South Africa has been intercepted before, had broken the seal of a container at the harbour and inserted the cocaine “into a load of paper rolls … destined for South Africa”.

Another container that was intercepted also had cocaine in it. The drug was concealed among frozen chicken and was destined for Libya. Images of the seized cocaine showed some boxes depicting owls – the same packaging as the cocaine intercepted in Durban, suggesting there could be a link.

Colombia and the ‘kidnapping case’

Another country with connections to drug trafficking in, or via, South Africa is Colombia. Earlier this month, Daily Maverick reported that a kidnapping case had been registered in the Cape Town suburb of Bishop Lavis, parts of which are known as 28s gang strongholds.

For safety reasons, the names of those allegedly kidnapped were not published until the police confirmed their identities – which has not yet happened.

In this case, there were suspicions that Colombian drug traffickers, angered over a consignment of cocaine of theirs that went missing off the Western Cape coast, were involved in the matter.

Cocaine from Colombia has ended up in South Africa before. In April, the police announced that blocks of cocaine worth R15-million were discovered on “a vessel that was travelling from Colombia to Richards Bay port of entry”. The vessel was laden with iron imports.

Among those involved in the interception was the US Drug Enforcement Administration. At the time, a SAPS statement said that  a “preliminary investigation was conducted and certain evidence was collected. No arrest has been made at this stage and the operation continues.”

Mail from Cape Town

South Africa also has extensive drug ties to Australia. Information previously picked up indicates that various syndicates, including motorcycle gangs, operate between the two countries trafficking drugs, notably cocaine.

The recent conclusion of a court matter in Australia again highlighted the links and the different ways in which drugs are being smuggled. On 8 July, the Supreme Court of New South Wales denied an attempt by Abdul Malik Shah, who was based in Sydney, to overturn his conviction.

Shah had been found guilty “of attempting to possess a marketable quantity of a border-controlled drug, namely cocaine”.

He was sentenced to five years and 11 months in prison.

The judgment denying Shah’s appeal against his conviction explained that a package arrived in Australia from South Africa in April 2019 and was X-rayed. Aside from fabric in it, a “white powdery substance” was found hidden in the internal walls of the cardboard box.

The sender was listed as someone in Long Market Street, Cape Town. Shah was not charged over that package.

But the following month, a second parcel arrived in Australia from South Africa and was also X-rayed. Again a “white powdery substance” was picked up hidden in it.

“The substance was cocaine,” the judgment said. “The very powerful inference arises, in my opinion, that the sending of the two parcels, and the response of [Shah] to them, was no coincidence at all; on the contrary, [Shah] was part of a scheme with a particular repeated modus operandi to import cocaine – a valuable contraband when in significant quantities – into Australia from the RSA.” Shah’s appeal was therefore dismissed.

There have been several other major cocaine busts in Australia with links to South Africa.

Daily Maverick reported that 100kg of cocaine, worth an estimated value of A$40-million (about R489-million), was intercepted in the cargo hold of a passenger plane that flew from South Africa to Sydney in October last year. Five suspects were arrested in Australia, and another five were detained in South Africa at OR Tambo International Airport. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.