Pubdate: Fri, 31 Oct 2003
Source: Business Day (South Africa)
Copyright: 2003 Business Day.
Contact:  http://www.bday.co.za/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2925

MAPUTO POLICE ON ALERT AFTER DRUG BUST

Johannesburg

THE Mozambican police were placed on maximum alert this week for drug 
traffickers, said to be using Maputo International Airport as a point of 
transit, according to Nataniel Macamo, head of public relations in the 
interior ministry.

The Mozambique Information Agency reported Macamo as saying traffickers 
were bringing cocaine from Latin America to South Africa, via Maputo. "The 
planes they catch take them from Brazil via Lisbon to Maputo," he said.

The traffickers, mostly women, were working for a powerful network, with 
headquarters in SA, and had chosen Maputo as a safe corridor.

Macamo was speaking after the arrest of a South African woman the second 
arrest in 10 days at Maputo airport at the weekend. The woman was found to 
be carrying "30 balls of cocaine", each weighing five grams, in her stomach.

Zelda Haas, 25, was flying from Sao Paulo, Brazil, via Lisbon, with an 
onward connection to SA. Another SA woman, Singathawa Mandongana, who was 
allegedly carrying 700g of cocaine, had followed the same route and was 
arrested at Maputo airport last week, thanks to cooperation with the 
Portuguese police.

Haas told police that she should have been carrying 69 balls of the drug, 
but she had "complications" in swallowing them and fainted.

Her companions decided to stop after she had swallowed only 30 balls, and 
submitted her to intensive treatment before she left.

She also explained that she had been scheduled to depart on October 19, but 
the trip was postponed after the news of the arrest of Mandongana.

The two suspects are in police custody in Maputo, and the police hope for 
more arrests.
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart