The Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks) in South Africa (SA) have seized approximately 90 kilogram of drugs with an estimated street value of R36 million ($2\u00a0172 million) at the Port of Durban, Kwa Zulu Natal province on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Customs officials intercepted the suspected cocaine and alerted members of the SA Narcotics Enforcement Bureau (Saneb), which falls under the Hawks.<\/p>\n
The crime-fighting agency says they will send the drugs to a Forensic Science Laboratory for chemical analysis.<\/p>\n
The Directorate\u2019s Spokesperson, Katlego Mogale says, \u201cMembers of the\u00a0Saneb\u00a0were alerted by a customs official to suspected cocaine concealed within an excavator that had arrived at the Q and R Car Terminal from Santos, Brazil.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUpon arrival, the scene was handed over to Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation\u00a0members by Customs officials. A thorough inspection of the excavator revealed suspicious packages concealed within a panel leading to the engine compartment. Further examination resulted in the seizure of 47 blocks containing a powdered substance suspected to be cocaine.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mogale adds, \u00a0\u201cWhile the first scene was being processed, customs officials reported the discovery of a second concealment on another excavator that had already been offloaded from the vessel. A subsequent inspection led to the seizure of an additional 43 blocks of suspected cocaine.\u201d<\/p>\n
–SABC–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":36419,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-36418","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Customs officials intercepted the suspected cocaine","published_date":"","news_description":"Customs officials intercepted the suspected cocaine","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/36418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/36418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36420,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/36418\/revisions\/36420"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=36418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}