Police in the United Kingdom say they have found 49kgs of cocaine hidden in a shipment of oranges from South Africa.
According to the police in the United Kingdom, the street value of the drugs is at R75 million and the picture from the South West Regional Organised Crime United shows the shipment.
South West Regional Organised Crime United is an umbrella body that combines the efforts of several English counties and shows the drugs packed in high-end watch boxes.
Business Insider SA reports that the illegal substances are tightly wrapped in clear plastic, and covered by a thin layer of oranges, some with moldy patches.
“The police group did not provide details on the South African end of the shipment, such as the originating port or the sending company,” reports Business Insider SA.
“It said only the cocaine had arrived in the United Kingdom via the Port of Felixstowe, not far from Ipswich. Nearly half of Britain’s container shipments pass through Felixstowe, and the pot has its own dedicated police unit.”
Furthermore, BusinessTech Africa understands that the drugs from South Africa were found after four men were arrested during a swoop in London, police said, as they executed a total of seven warrants.
Those raids were triggered by the discovery, in April, of a 189kg shipment of cocaine delivered to a British farm, which had been dispatched from Colombia.
The publication also published that three of the four suspects arrested have since been released from jail.
Meanwhile, large quantities of drugs from South Africa end up in countries such as India, Nepal, and the United States.
Back in 2019, Australian police found 384kgs of cocaine welded into a second-hand excavator that had been shipped from South Africa.
The Durban harbour seems the most preferred entry point where South Africa has seized tonnes of illegal substances such as cocaine shipped from Brazil.
Experts say SA is an ideal trans-shipment point and this is credited to a combination of extensive police corruption and good transport infrastructure, with high volumes of outbound shipments to both Europe and the across the Indian Ocean.
