Two more women were caught trying to sneak drugs into SA last week, just a month after the execution of Durban-born drug mule Janice Linden.
The two women are among dozens of South Africans arrested for the transport of drugs in the past two months.
On Wednesday, a middle-aged woman was arrested on the border of Namibia and SA, at the Ariamsvlei border post, allegedly transporting mandrax estimated to be worth about R100 000.
After a court appearance on Friday in Karasburg, the woman was taken to a local prison while she awaits the start of her trial.
The Saturday Star also reported that a woman, Patience Monkei-Khame, had been arrested at Malawi’s Lilongwe International Airport for transporting almost 4kg of cocaine in a pram.
Monkei-Khame had allegedly been offered R30 000 to smuggle the drugs into SA, but now faces Malawi’s harsh anti-drug laws.
Patricia Gerber, director of Locked Up – an NGO that has for years been pressuring the government into bringing South Africans home from abroad to serve their sentences locally – said there had been more than 20 drug-related arrests at the end of November, and at least 12 since then.
Nolubabalo Nobanda, a South African who was arrested at a Bangkok airport in December for transporting 1.5kg of cocaine in her dreadlocks, has yet to appear before a court.
Gerber, who has been in contact with Nobanda’s distraught family, said that while Thailand was faster with processing its drug-related cases, it could be months before Nobanda had an idea of whether she would spend decades in a Thai prison.
In December, Linden was executed by lethal injection in China for drug smuggling, leaving her family devastated after they had tried for years to prevent the execution.
Anyone with queries or a family member facing a jail sentence abroad can contact Locked Up via its website www.lockedup.co.za. - The Star