Following up on April drug smuggling intelligence, two SA Police Service (SAPS) units found cocaine with an estimated value of over R13 million hidden in a imported bus at Durban Harbour.
The find saw officers from Durban’s Operational Response (ORS) and Serious Organised Crime investigation (SOCI) units searching buses imported from an undisclosed South American country destined for delivery to Gauteng on Tuesday this week. The search was prompted by the recovery of drugs in Gauteng last month and action taken on intelligence sourced in that bust. This saw police profile “certain vessels” as potential drug transports, the SAPS said in a statement on Wednesday 6 May.
Thirty-two blocks of cocaine were hidden in the air conditioning compartment of one bus in a shipment scheduled for delivery to Gauteng.
At the time of publication no arrests had been made with investigating officers following up on leads to find those responsible for smuggling the cocaine into South Africa as well as the intended recipients of the shipment.
Drug production and smuggling is an ongoing issue, and which was highlighted recently by a “significant breakthrough” last month after the SAPS Organised Crime Unit in Gauteng discovered a suspected drug lab at Rembrandt Avenue in Sandton.
On the morning of 12 April, the team operationalised intelligence information which led them to a house where they found chemicals, equipment and end product suspected to be drugs. The product found is estimated to a street value of approximately R1.5 million. No one was found in the house and a case of manufacturing of suspected drugs was opened for further investigations, the SAPS said.
One of South Africa’s largest ever drug busts occurred in July 2024 when police raided a sophisticated drug lab in Groblersdal. Four suspects including the farm owner and two Mexican nationals were arrested in an intelligence driven operation. The raid uncovered large quantities of chemicals used in the manufacturing of illicit drugs, and crystal meth with an estimated street value of R2 billion was seized.
Gareth Newham, Head of Justice and Violence Prevention at the Institute for Security Studies, noted at the time that “the size of the operation and amount of chemicals seized, it’s most likely part of a large and sophisticated syndicate. That Mexicans were arrested shows a transnational organisation.”
Law enforcement have been in the spotlight recently for their involvement in the drug trade. In June 2021, a R200 million cocaine consignment weighing 541 kg linked to transnational traffickers was intercepted in Isipingo, KwaZulu-Natal, but in November that year it was stolen from an unprotected Hawks building, with law enforcement apparently behind the heist, according to Madlanga Commission testimony this month.
Daily Maverick previously reported that instead of being stored at an official forensic science laboratory, as it should have been, the consignment was instead kept at the Hawks’ offices in Port Shepstone. Between 6 and 8 November 2021, over a weekend, the R20 -million consignment was stolen from a strong room inside the building, with thieves used a grinder to get into the room. The building’s alarm was not working at the time.
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