South African authorities were notified by their Brazilian counterparts of an inbound vessel carrying large quantities of drugs.
Authorities have made a large drug bust off the coast of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN).
The South African Revenue Service (Sars) played a significant role in the operation and thanked foreign authorities for their assistance in notifying the inbound port.
The bust is the second multimillion-rand drug-related incident in recent months involving cocaine, following an incident in Cape Town.
Cocaine smuggled from Brazil
Intelligence led customs officials to intercept a cargo ship anchored roughly four nautical miles off the coast near Durban
A marine patrol vessel escorted the ship to the harbour, where customs officials boarded it on Wednesday.
According to Sars, several containers on board that posed a potential smuggling risk had already been identified prior to the ship’s arrival
“The inspection resulted in the discovery of 25 large bricks of suspected cocaine hidden in the refrigeration units of several containers.
A field drug test was conducted and positively identified the goods as cocaine of a very high quality suitable for further dilution and expansion into larger volumes for illicit distribution,” Sars said.
Police confiscated the goods and Sars placed the value of the smuggled contraband at R56 million.
The bust, under the Operation Irene banner, was the result of extensive communication between Sars and its counterparts in Brazil.
“It is such collaboration that communicates concrete cooperation within Brics countries that deals a heavy blow against organised crime syndicates,” Sars commissioner Edward Keiswetter said.
Cape Town bust
In a separate cocaine bust in June, police arrested a 40-year-old man in Cape Town in possession of 15 bricks of the substance
Police placed the value of cocaine at R18 million and also confiscated an AK-47 rifle, five 9mm pistols and a Uzi submachine gun.
Police units tracked suspects to a storage facility in Roeland Street, where they acted on gathered intelligence.
“Members operationalised the information and pounced on the self-storage facility where they found the suspect at one of the units,” Wevtern Cape police spokesperson Captain Frederick Van Wyk said.
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