By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Another intelligence driven operation by police officers attached to the Durban harbour has resulted in cocaine worth a street value of R80 million being seized at a warehouse at the Dube Trade Port within the King Shaka International Airport.
Police spokesperson Brigadier Athlenda Mathe says members had been tracking various containers which arrived into the country via the Durban harbour from Brazil.
She said on Friday afternoon, members tracked a certain container to the Dube Trade Port in which 228 blocks of cocaine were seized.
The cocaine was found concealed in meat boxes and disguised as such.
This is the second shipment to be seized in as many days after R70 million worth of cocaine was also seized from a container at the Durban Harbour.
The total of seized shipments is R150 million.
National police commissioner Fannie Masemola says investigations are underway to establish the final destination of the drugs.
“The SAPS is hard at work in disrupting and dismantling transnational organised crime that poses a significant threat to the communities we serve, “he says.
“We continue to intensify and strengthen the detection of drug trafficking and associated organised crime. We are intensifying our safer festive operations, and there are more takedowns to come from the SAPS. We are warning those involved in such activities to either surrender, or we will continue to sniff them out.”
The case will be handed over to the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks) for investigation.
It was widely suspected the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) was among the global gangs operating via, and smuggling cocaine through, South Africa.
Underpinning crackdowns on cocaine traffickers in South Africa are suspicions that police officers are sometimes involved in drug smuggling.
In July 2021 cocaine worth R200-million was discovered in a bakkie following the hijacking of a cargo truck after it left Durban harbour.
Police officers had been among those arrested for that.
A few months later, in November 2021, the Hawks announced that 514kg of cocaine, worth about R200-million, had been stolen from its Serious Organised Crime offices in Port Shepstone in KwaZulu-Natal.