Police get pat on back after raid
Hawks pounce on drug lab in Dobsonville
Residents of a quiet Soweto neighbourhood were shocked yesterday when the area suddenly became a hive of activity hours before police made a major drug bust.
A joint operation between the Hawks in Gauteng and the police’s crime intelligence unit led to the arrest of a 25-year-old man at a house in Mmesi Park in Dobsonville.
Police discovered an elaborate operation that had produced 330kg of mandrax when they pounced, according to Gauteng Hawks boss Prince Mokotedi. Mokotedi could not reveal the value of the drugs found at the house on Vincent Thusi Street as police also found the unfinished product.
Some of the shocked residents told Sowetan that they did not suspect the house, which they claimed had been recently bought for cash, was a drug laboratory as Police Minister Fikile Mbalula described it.
They said the suspect arrested was a foreign national, but Mbalula would not confirm this. The minister said the operation was crime intelligence-led and that the police officers involved were a multidisciplinary group.
The drugs manufactured at the Dobsonville laboratory were taken to Cape Town, according to the police minister.
Deputy national police commissioner Lieutenant-General Fannie Masemola said police discovered that drugs were manufactured in the house during the intelligence-led operation involving crime intelligence in the Western Cape and the Hawks in Gauteng.
After the 25-year-old man was whisked away by police, two women were arrested in Orlando, also in Soweto.
Hawks spokesman Brigadier Hangwani Mulaudzi said the women were later released after police could not link them to the drug bust, but added that there would be further investigations.
Mulaudzi said the man was scheduled to appear before the Roodepoort Magistrate’s Court tomorrow.
The drug bust follows the arrest of Danotus Ezeagbai, 49, who was found in possession of 4.6kg of CAT drugs with an estimated street value of R1.3-million in Bela-Bela, Limpopo.
Ezeagbai appeared before the Bela-Bela Magistrate’s Court on Monday and was remanded in custody.
His formal bail hearing will be next Wednesday, according to Limpopo Hawks spokesman Captain Matimba Maluleke.