A 30-year-old Namibian woman was arrested at OR Tambo International Airport in Kempton Park after arriving with suspected cocaine inside her body.
According to the South African Police Service (SAPS), the woman, believed to be a drug mule, was detained on Sunday. This marks the tenth arrest of a drug mule at the busy Gauteng airport in the last two months.
National police spokesperson Brigadier Athlenda Mathe said that SAPS, along with SA Revenue Service customs and immigration officials, were acting on intelligence suggesting that a drug mule from São Paulo would land around 7am.
“The team intercepted the woman as she passed through immigration. She was promptly arrested and taken to a hospital, where a medical X-ray revealed foreign objects in her stomach,” Mathe explained.
By Sunday evening, efforts to retrieve the suspected drugs from her body were ongoing.
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“She has already expelled over 60 pellets of suspected cocaine. She remains under police supervision,” Mathe added.
At this stage, the exact value of the drugs is undetermined, as the process of expelling all the suspected substances may take some time.
Meanwhile, SAPS national commissioner General Fannie Masemola praised the vigilance of the multi-disciplinary team working to combat crime at OR Tambo International Airport.
“Our law enforcement officers are diligently intercepting serious criminals. South Africa is not a safe haven for criminal activity or transnational organized crime. We are narrowing the options for criminals,” Masemola said.
In a related incident last month, a South African woman, suspected of being a drug mule, was arrested at the same airport after returning from Brazil, claiming she had been shopping for her upcoming wedding.
Captain Lloyd Ramovha, Gauteng provincial spokesperson for the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks), said the 33-year-old woman was apprehended on August 27, after a search of her luggage revealed 10 kilograms of cocaine.
Further investigation at the airport identified two Nigerian nationals, aged 37 and 52, as possible accomplices. They were brought in for questioning after being observed at the international arrivals hall, but they could not provide evidence for their claimed reason of being there.
It was later determined that they had been waiting for the arrested drug mule from Motherwell, Port Elizabeth.
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