Pretoria - Police at OR Tambo International Airport in Gauteng have seized 143kg of cocaine with a street value of about R50-million, the SA Police Service (SAPS) said on Saturday.
“The continuous state of alertness by the authorities at the OR Tambo International Airport has led to the discovery of a cocaine consignment weighing 143 kilograms with an estimated value [of] R50 million,” SAPS spokesperson Brigadier Vishnu Naidoo said in a statement.
This was one of the largest drug recoveries by the authorities at South Africa's ports of entry. During a normal routine search on Friday morning, members of the SAPS anti-smuggling unit based at the cargo section of the airport found the drugs hidden in 147 hair product bottles.
“This cocaine consignment arrived from Brazil and information displayed on the cargo indicated that it was in transit to Cotonou, Benin, in West Africa,” Naidoo said.
The SAPS was already hard at work trying to establish if the consignment was indeed on the way to that destination and to find out who the intended recipient was.
The drugs were transported to the SAPS forensic laboratory in Pretoria, he said. National Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega said: “The continuous discovery of drugs by both the SAPS and the customs officials gives us a comfortable feeling that our ports of entry are manned by committed people who understand the mission and mandate.
“Although we would have loved to arrest someone in connection with this recovery, we take comfort in the knowledge that this huge stash did not find its way into any community in the country, where lives could have been ruined,” she said.
ANA