Pretoria, 23 October 2012 – Yesterday morning, 22 October 2012, a male passenger who had arrived in the country on flight SA223 from Sao Paulo in Brazil was identified for further customs checks by the SARS Customs team at OR Tambo International Airport. The passenger had one bag of clothes and a laptop bag in his possession.
At the Customs search area, the bags were inspected and the laptop was found to be concealing a substance thought to be cocaine. A SARS Drug Detector dog, Monty, was used for confirmation, and reacted positively for drugs. Monty is a 3 year old German Shepherd trained to detect hidden narcotics such as cocaine, mandrax, cannabis, ecstasy, heroin etc. He has been operational at OR Tambo since October last year.
The substance was confirmed to be 3kg of cocaine, valued at around R1.5 million. The passenger was handed over to the SAPS for further investigation.
This is the second major success in 8 days for the SARS Customs team at OR Tambo International.
On Monday 15th October, a male passenger arriving on flight SA227 from Buenos Aires was intercepted for further checks. The passenger was questioned and his luggage was searched. The search revealed almost 11kg of cocaine, valued at R5.5 million, concealed in three jackets, the soles of 2 pairs of sandals, and a duvet. The passenger was handed over to the SAPS.
