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·      South Africa is placed in the upper quadrant of the Mafia Index ·      According to the Global Organised Crime Index, South Africa has become a new trafficking route for methamphetamine to East Asia ·      Mexicans have been arrested in separate drug laboratories in Mpumalanga and Limpopo

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Sizwe sama Yende

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The continuing arrest of Mexican nationals in clandestine drug laboratories shows that there is a growing co-operation between syndicates in the country and outside.

This is according to Institute for Security Studies (ISS) organised crime expert, Willem Els, who also said that these discoveries were enhancing the perception of South Africa being a mafia state.

In the latest drug bust, the Hawks in Mpumalanga arrested five Mexican nationals - Isabel Antonio Quintero Corrales (36), Hector Manuel Valenzuela Ontiveros (36), Luis Alberto Osorio Viscarra (31), Jose Omar Molina Jimenez (36) and Nicanor Molina Jimenez (48).

The quintet were arrested with a South African, Bafana Samson Magubane (61), at Ousehoutklood farm outside Volksrust last month, where crystal methamphetamine valued at R350 million was found.

Before this bust, another big one was done on a farm outside Groblersdal, Limpopo, last year, where three Mexicans - Gonzales Jorge (51),  Gutierrez Lopes (43) and Ruben Vidal Rodriguez – were arrested alongside South Africans - Simphiwe Khumalo (35) and Frederick Botha (67). Crystal meth with an estimated street value of R2 billion was found.

“Having the Mexicans in those cases,” said Els,  “is a demonstration  that there's a growing cooperation between syndicates. We should just  remember that if you look at the Mafia index we see that South Africa along with Mexico and Italy is placed in the upper quadrant when it comes to Mafia states.”

INEFFECTIVE POLICING

More than 10 clandestine drug laboratories have been discovered in various parts of the country in the last 24 months. According to the Global Organised Crime Index, South Africa has become a new trafficking route for methamphetamine to East Asia. While the manufacturing of the drug exists in the country, it is also a transit hub for methamphetamine sourced from Nigeria and Western Asia.

Els said that South Africa was an attractive site for transnational drug syndicates due to a number of factors that include the high crime rate, ineffectiveness of the police in terms of intelligence, of crime prevention, and crime detection.

“We see that our conviction rate of all crimes currently is about 12.5%, but if it comes down to robberies, it's only 9% of criminals that are arrested, tried and convicted. So that is, if you're a gambler, the odds are on your side to come into South Africa and form part of the criminal network,” Els said.

“Secondly, our porous borders. That makes it easy for these people to come in, and they are often undocumented foreigners.”

The DA in Mpumalanga has since called for the transfer of functions from the police to the Border Management Authority (BMA) to prevent drug cartels from entering the country.

EMBEDDED STATE OFFICIAL

Els added that the elephant in the room was embedded state actors. “It is easy and very lucrative for these syndicates to operate in South Africa, because they just compromise officials from the police, to customs, to immigration, to some politicians that protect them. That provides them impunity to operate within South Africa,” he said.

Els said that South Africa was part of the southern route. Drugs such as heroin harvested and refined in Afghanistan enter the continent in Tanzania through Pakisatan, and also through northern Mozambique.

He said dealers brought heroin down the ancient trade routes along the east coast of Africa, known as the Swahili coast, and they smuggled it along with all other commodities.

“Then it comes over to South Africa. Some estimates is that up to 18 tons of heroin is being smuggled into South Africa per year. We don't see many arrests when it comes to that. So, these syndicates are well protected. And now we see of late, they also started to smuggle in synthetic drugs, such as methamphetamines,” Els said.

Els said the other route drug cartels used was from Brazil where cocaine comes from. Els said there had been incidents of pellets or bags of cocaine being thrown on floaters.

“They throw it overboard from the passing freighter liners. Then, the local fisher boats are used by cruise syndicates here to go and pick it up in the high seas, and then they bring it into South Africa. Some of the drugs are then moved up north into Africa, but also to Europe, and then also on to Australia, and the east,” he said.

POLITICAL WILL

Els said that the country needed to rethink its border investigation and crime prevention strategies to combat influx of drug dealers. “A lot of people are being arrested and they end up found not guilty because we just don't have the capacity or, in many cases, the aptitude to effectively investigate cases. It's also within the NPA (National Prosecuting Authority) where we don’t have that fibre of prosecutors that can actually successfully prosecute these cases,” Els said.

He said that the transfer of police duties to BMA would not only be unconstitutional but would also have no impact due to lack of resources in both entities.

“We saw in the beginning when the BMA was deployed, we had some wonderful busts. There were big cases opened and things were going well. A few months down the line, it started to dwindle, and one of the main reasons for that is syndicates that compromise those people. So whether it's wearing a police uniform, a BMA uniform, a military uniform, those people, once they have been corrupted by these syndicates, it doesn't matter whether they're from, they're going to have their way, especially on the borders,” Els said.

Els said that the problem could be solved with political will to design an operational concept that can fight the crime.