Duo drug bust in OR Tambo
Ninety-one cocaine bullets swallowed by a pair of passengers and a deserted body suit holding concealed contraband were among the drug busts made by South African Revenue Service Customs at OR Tambo International Airport in less than a week.
Sars spokesperson Sandile Memela said in a statement the drug hauls were valued at R6.5m - excluding the coke bullets found over the weekend.
Yesterday, a passenger, who had arrived on a flight from Kenya, attempted to make a run for it past customs officials while carrying a backpack containing 16kg of ephedrine worth R4 837 380.
"After dog detectors reacted to the bag, a further full inspection and scan revealed five clear plastic bags containing a crystal substance which tested positive for crystal methamphetamine," Memela said.
On Saturday, a Sars dog unit inspector found 4kg of cocaine worth R1.2m in a bodysuit during an aircraft inspection of a flight from Sao Paulo.
The substance concealed in the bodysuit, which had been hidden in the aircraft toilet, tested positive for cocaine.
Memela said that, in a "bizarre" concealment case on Wednesday, an X-ray of two passengers who arrived on a flight from Sao Paulo revealed they had swallowed 91 cocaine bullets between the two of them.
"The passengers had been stopped, as one of them had been identified as a possible drug mule through Sars’ risk engines, while the second passenger displayed suspicious behaviour," he confirmed.
"The passengers were taken to a hospital for body X-rays, which showed that the first passenger had 58 foreign objects inside the abdomen while the other had 41. Altogether, 91 cocaine bullets, weighing approximately 1.4kg, were identified.”
The two were arrested and placed under medical surveillance for the release of the bullets.