South Africa uncovers major drug lab

Two Mexican nationals were among five suspects arrested at an industrial-scale meth production facility in Limpopo

Two Mexicans were among five people arrested at a crystal meth lab worth more than half a billion rand (nearly $30 million) on a farm in Musina, Limpopo, the South African Police Service (SAPS) reported on Friday.

The lab was raided late on Thursday night. The blitz was carried out by the US Drug Enforcement Administration and Homeland Security, alongside the Hawks, SAPS, the South African Narcotics Bureau, Crime Intelligence and the Special Task Force. Hawks spokesman Colonel Avele Fumba said drugs and laboratory equipment worth an estimated R600m were seized, along with an undisclosed amount of cash.

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The five men are aged between 20 and 47. Two are Mexican, two are Zimbabwean, and one is Malawian. Fumba said the raid followed a two-month investigation into drug manufacturing on the farm, and that the lab was set up for industrial-scale production. It is the third clandestine drug lab shut down in Limpopo.

Limpopo Hawks head Major General Gopz Govender said the operation had gone after the machinery behind the drug trade. “This R600 million seizure is not merely a quantity of drugs taken off the streets. It represents the disruption of an entire criminal enterprise,” Govender said. “We will follow the money, the networks and every person connected to this operation.”

Limpopo police commissioner Lieutenant General Jan Scheepers said communities would not be left to become markets for syndicates. “Those who manufacture and distribute these dangerous substances must know that law enforcement is closing in on them,” he said.

Officers were still working the scene on Friday morning. Photographs released by police show officers in masks and surgical gloves moving through a low structure roofed with corrugated iron and walled with green shade netting. Industrial steel pots stand on the concrete floor beside a gas cylinder and a digital floor scale.

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Musina sits on the Beitbridge border post with Zimbabwe, the busiest land crossing in southern Africa. The five face charges of manufacturing and possessing illicit drugs and are due in the Musina Magistrate’s Court on Monday.

First published by IOL