Police have been clamping down on drug-related crimes, making arrests and recovering dagga.
Van Reenen police were busy with crime prevention activities when they spotted a suspicious-looking truck along the N3 freeway on Tuesday. The vehicle was searched and police found over 110kg of dagga inside. The driver was also found to be in possession of an unlicensed 9mm pistol and ammunition. The driver was arrested and faces charges of dealing in dagga and possession of an unlicensed firearm and ammunition. The 51-year-old suspect is set to appear in the Ladysmith Magistrate’s Court today (Thursday).
In a second unrelated incident on October 8 at about 8pm, Ezakheni police were patrolling in the Waaihoek area when they came across a suspicious-looking Toyota Corolla.
The vehicle and its occupants were searched, yielding a find of two bags of dagga with a weight of around 16kg. The two occupants of the vehicle, aged 36 and 43, were arrested for dealing in dagga.
Soon afterwards, Ezakheni police officers arrested a 52-year-old suspect at a homestead in Waaihoek for possession of dagga. Just over 7kg of dagga was recovered at the homestead.
The three suspects appeared briefly in the Ezakheni Magistrate’s Court shortly after their arrest and are set to appear in court again on October 23.
The street value of the dagga is estimated to be around R125,000.
The KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Commissioner, Lieutenant General Mmamonnye Ngobeni, praised the officers for the recovery of the dagga and the firearm. “The recovered firearm will be taken to ballistics to ascertain if it was used in the commission of any crime in the country,” she said.
