From headphones laced with cocaine to drugs hidden in plastics inside cooler boxes and suitcases at the airport.
These are some of the hiding spots that drug mules use to transport drugs in and outside of SA using airports, in particular the OR Tambo International Airport (Ortia) where at least 11 mules have been intercepted by police in the past two months.
“Criminals are becoming more innovative in how they transport drugs like hiding them in meat boxes,” said national police spokesperson Brig Athlenda Mathe.
“We have not necessarily seen a spike in the arrests or detection but what we have noticed is that the mules are ingesting and transporting more drugs now than what they used to do pre-Covid. They have been become more daring and are taking more risks,” said Mathe.
In one of the most recent cases, a 21-year-old SA woman was profiled and intercepted as she arrived on a flight from São Paulo, Brazil, just before 9am on Sunday last week. She was taken to a local hospital where an X-ray confirmed the presence of foreign objects in her stomach. Police said she passed 100 drug bullets, more than the average number of drug bullets that drug mules intercepted at the airport usually carried.
On September 22, a 30-year-old Namibian drug mule was arrested after arriving from São Paulo. She too was taken for medical examination and released more than 60 drug bullets.
“Traffickers use vulnerable young women who are easy to be coerced. Some of them know what they are getting themselves into [trafficking] while others claim to have been duped into a holiday overseas and only find out once in a foreign country that they would have to transport drugs back to SA. Some don’t even have money to come back home and are forced to act as mules,” said Mathe.
Legal counsel Nastasja Otrebski, from Otrebski Attorneys Inc in Johanesburg, said her company deals specifically with clients who have been arrested for drug-related crimes. Currently they have five active cases of trafficking before the Kempton Park magistrate’s courts. According to her past experience, 98% of her clients are women who find themselves in desperate financial situations that makes them vulnerable to drug dealers.
Koena Mashale, Lindile Sifile
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