[imagesource: Facebook / South African Police Service]
Yesterday, we covered the basics of a sizeable drug bust on a fishing vessel off the coast of Saldanha.
Following an extensive operation involving Western Cape organised crime narcotics unit detectives, police seized a cocaine haul estimated to be worth around R583 million on Monday evening.
Law enforcement arrested 10 suspects – four Bulgarian nationals and six Myanmar nationals.
The cocaine bust had an added layer of intrigue in that the drugs were clearly branded with the words ‘King Coca’:
This detail piqued the interest of many, and The Daily Maverick’s Caryn Dolley did some digging.
The drugs were packed in bags labelled Sport Ruixingda, but these can easily be bought online, so there’s not much to be found there.
However, a fishing vessel that was flying a Panama flag had arrived in Saldanha on Sunday, and it’s not clear if that was the vessel that was raided the following day:
A source with ties to policing, speaking anonymously given the sensitivity of the subject, said if the cocaine had been destined for the Western Cape the break in supply caused by the bust could spark friction among local gangs trying to muscle into the cocaine market gap.
Saldanha Bay has been the scene of massive cocaine busts in the past.
In some of the biggest incidents, 155kg or R325m worth of cocaine was reportedly discovered on a ship from Brazil in August 2011. The previous month, 116kg (R250m) was discovered on a Maltese cargo ship.
Cuban drug lord Nelson Pablo Yester-Garrido spent around two decades in South Africa, before his arrest in 2011 after a R400 million cocaine bust in Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth), so the trafficking routes are well established.
Gqeberha – say that name correctly.
Whilst law enforcement deserves a pat on the back for the bust, former members of the 28s gang have told The Daily Maverick that it may have been a “diversion”:
…the real haul worth double the amount might have gone through a different port.
They say the real stash could easily have slipped through the ports of Mossel Bay and Knysna and found its way to drug kingpins.
Maverick Citizen was also told that the Covid-19 regulations have led to the depletion of the drug stock in the Western Cape, which was why a stash of this magnitude had arrived.
Sources said the cocaine was purportedly to be distributed by the 28s gang in the Cape Flats.
There is currently some upheaval with the relationship between the Numbers gang and the international drug trade, after the 2019 assassination of “a former high flyer” gang member that was “the handler for the Mafia in South Africa”.
“But since his death no suitable handler has been found. To fill this position, the replacement needs to serve time, [to have] gone through the four corners in prison and proved he is a worthy candidate. The problem the prison Number [gangs] experience is that the new kids on the blocks who overnight become gang leaders without getting the number want to be the handler.”
This situation has put underworld figures and seasoned kingpins on a collision course with the new gangsters, and has resulted in a recent spate of killings in the Western Cape.
Over the past week, the leader of the Clever Kids was shot and killed in Manenberg, with a number of recent shootings featuring a red Golf without number plates loaded with gunmen.
You can read more on that here.
Meanwhile, South Africa’s biggest wannabe gangster, Police Minister Bheki Cele, fresh off a visit to Nkandla, headed to Mitchells Plain yesterday for a photo op to score points to console a community currently caught in the crossfire of warring gangs.
Community activist Sulyman Stellenboom hit the nail on the head, saying Cele “treats Mitchells Plain as a catwalk. Our children are being shot at and these ministers do not have a plan. Our youth are dying like flies. I have no respect for Cele.”
You and me both, Sulyman.
[sources:dailymaverick&dailymaverick]
