Sars officials bust drugs, cigarettes worth millions

In the latest incident SARS customs officials and detector dogs intercepted 100kg of Crystal Meth with an estimated value of R30-million at OR Tambo International Airport on Friday.

SARS spokesperson, Sandile Memela said the shipment originated from Cameroon and came via Instanbul in Turkish on a flight to Johannesburg.

“The cargo found at the transit shed was loose dried fish and 33 cans weighing 3 litres each that tested positive for Crystal Meth. The goods were handed over to South African Police Service for further investigation,”Memela said.

On 17 February, customs officers detained 16, 6 million suspected illegal cigarettes with a commercial value of R18-million. The cigarettes were contained in 1647 master cases that were consequently detained pending further investigation.

Memela said the possible duties in respect of the cigarettes amounted to approximately R11 million. On 25 January 28kg of Ecstasy and Cocaine estimated at over R8-million were confiscated in two separate incidents within 48 hours of each other at the airport. A detector dog sniffed a consignment with 15kg cocaine covered in cream valued at R4.3m in transit from Sao Paulo in Brazil to Windhoek in Namibia.

In an earlier incident 13.2kg of Ecstasy were intercepted at the airport mail centre. The drugs, with estimated street value of R3, 9m were on route to Sweden from Malawi.

Memela said customs officials noticed damage on the seals of cream containers. “Upon further inspection they discovered Ecstasy in 42 containers.

Memela said the investigations in these incidents were still in progress. Memela, who is concerned at the frequency of the drugs discoveries, last month said as some of the consignment has only a postal address, it became difficult for the SARS to investigate them as the owners were not easy to detect.

For more news your way, follow The Citizen on Facebook and Twitter.