PRETORIA, 3 December 2015: – SARS Customs officials last week confiscated gold worth almost R3 million at the King Shaka International Airport (KSIA).
The gold was found in the pockets and a moneybag of a male passenger who was hiding it under a Kurta worn over his clothing.
The luggage of the passenger, disembarking from Dubai, was searched in the common search room after being profiled by the Customs Passengers team. Although nothing untoward was found in his luggage, the “bulging pockets” under his Kurta convinced an alert official to inspect further. He found 48 gold bars weighing 5.6kg in the passenger’s pockets and a money bag wrapped around his waist.
The case is still in an investigation stage, and the suspect has not yet appeared in court.
Also in Durban, as part of a random search at the Customs Mail Centre, Customs officials scanned an airmail parcel posted in the Netherlands to a Durban address. The content was declared as a “car cover/ plant cover/ dog bag E130”.
The parcel was selected for further investigation after the scan showed what appeared to be a large amount of tablets in square packages. Officials subsequently found several packets of white tablets taped to the products that were mailed. The tablets were stuck onto brown and black sticky tape to form two packages, which were glued to the inside of both the car cover and plant cover, and thereafter folded neatly into plastic bags with outer advertising packaging confirming the products to be a car and plant cover respectively.
The tablets have since been confirmed to be methylenedioxy-methamphetamine (Ecstasy tablets). The packets containing the tablets weighed 1,8 kg, and has a street value of about R310 000. It was detained for hand-over to the South African Police.
