Nearly R3 million rands worth of drugs have been confiscted in just two days, in two seerate incidents.
On Monday 5 December the Breede River K-9 Unit confiscated 1 008 Mandrax tablets with a street value of R300 000.
“Attempts to eradicate the lucrative drug trade in the Western Cape continues as the strategic deployment of members attached to the Breede River K-9 Unit yielded positive results when they arrested a suspect and confiscated 1 008 Mandrax pills to the value of almost R300 000,” Worcester police spokesperson Warrant Officer Vathiswa Jacobs said in a press release.
Members attached to the K-9 Unit were performing crime combating operations when they made the arrest.
“The crime combating operations these members were performing form part of the Safer Festive Season operational deployment,” Jacobs said. “It was in the course of this that they spotted the 30-year-old male suspect near the railway line in Zwelethemba, Worcester.
“They accosted him, conducted a search and found the drugs, which were concealed in a plastic bag, on him. They arrested him and detained him in the local police holding cells.”
In the second incident, a suspect was arrested on Tuesday 6 December on the R60 between Worcester and Robertson. He was found with Mandrax worth R2,8 million in his possession.
Said a press release from the Hawks: “The 37-year-old suspect was nabbed following a multidisciplinary operation led by the Hawks’ South African Narcotics Enforcement Bureau team based in Bellville, Cape Town, together with Western Cape Crime Intelligence’s Counter Narcotics and Gangs as well as the K-9 Unit from the Breede River.
“The team acted on intelligence about a suspect travelling from Gauteng to Cape Town with a vehicle loaded with Mandrax tablets.”
The Hawks’ team spotted the vehicle, and with assistance from the K-9 Unit managed to stop it.
“The joint police team requested a search,” the Hawks press statement related.
“On conducting the search the Mandrax tablets were found hidden in a false compartment in the vehicle. The suspect was immediately arrested and the drugs were seized for further investigation.”
The suspects in both seizures made their first appearances in the Worcester Magistrates’ Court this week. – Tamsyn Jantjies
