Have passport, will smuggle: SA's drug mules pop up globally

Several arrests, mostly in Brazil but also in countries such as Argentina and Angola, demonstrate how South Africans are used by transnational crime syndicates to traffic illegal narcotics. By Caryn Dolley

- Caryn Dolley

South Africa keeps surfacing in other countries' crackdowns on crime aimed at “couriers”, also known as drug mules, who travel as passengers on planes while concealing illicit drug consignments.

In about four months until the end of last year, there were at least 11 arrests at Johannesburg’s OR Tambo International Airport that had ties to São Paulo in Brazil.

And the situation has persisted. Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni recently told Parliament that the State Security Agency had cooperation agreements with various countries, including Brazil, to try to tackle transnational crime.

Issues concerning drug mules have also been flagged. “In this regard, intelligence profiling is conducted to identify patterns and trends and high-risk flights and nationalities,” Ntshavheni said.

“These flights and passengers are frequently monitored.”

This means that intelligence agents are keeping tabs on some passengers on planes.

Ntshavheni said that if a traveller was deemed to be acting suspiciously, their details were submitted to the airport where they were destined to land ahead of their arrival. This is how authorities at airports sometimes know which passengers to search.

The South African Police Service announced in March that two suspected mules had been detained at OR Tambo airport. That brought to at least five the total of such arrests at the airport since the start of this year.

A Brazilian man (24) and a South African woman (51) were detained after travelling on the same flight from São Paulo.

“A medical examination confirmed that both suspects had ingested ‘bullets’ suspected to contain cocaine,” a police statement said. “In addition, police discovered and confiscated more cocaine concealed inside the suspects’ luggage.”

The cocaine was estimated to be worth more than R1-million.