FRUITS AND VEGETABLES TRUCK NABBED WITH DAGGA

MBABANE - There is more in the dealings of a local company that buys fruits and vegetables in South Africa for distribution in the country than meets the eye.

This, after police officers at Ngwenya Border Gate found parcels of dagga hidden in a secret compartment in the truck which belongs to Sibu Ben’s Fruits and Vegetables. It has since been discovered that the Mazda mini-truck was in fact specially designed to smuggle dagga for many dagga dealers in the country and the vegetable business was allegedly used as a decoy.
The name and emblem of the company is inscribed on both sides of the truck.  The owner of the truck was allegedly paid lucrative sums of money to smuggle dagga into the Republic of South Africa by local dagga dealers. He was allegedly paid monies ranging from E10 000 to E35 000.

Possession

The director of public prosecutions (DPP) has since obtained an order to seize the truck in terms of Section 42 of the Prevention of Organised Crimes Act (POCA) of 2018. The driver of the truck was also found in possession of E10 000 cash which was also confiscated by the State in terms of the Act. In its application, the Crown argued that the truck was instrumentality of unlawful activity, used in a bid to smuggle dagga into the Republic of South Africa. In her founding affidavit,  Principal Crown Counsel Elsie Matsebula, who is the Head of the Assets Forfeiture unit informed the court that the truck was found in the process of smuggling dagga into the neighbouring country.

“It was professionally packed in vacuum plastic bags. Arrangement was made by a security officer, who once worked at the border, to have a drug enforcement officer allow the passage of the dagga through the border,” submitted Matsebula. She informed the court that the consignment consisted of 58 parcels or vacuum blocks that totalled a weight of 78 kilogrammes. Matsebula said the driver of the truck, Mndeni Mhlanga, had no licence to export the dagga, neither had he declared the consignment with the Customs’ desk.

“The false compartment was created by welding a false metal dividing the loading bin into two compartments. The dagga was hidden in the compartment underneath the open bakkie space making it very hard to detect,” said the principal Crown Counsel. She told the court that the false compartment was fully accessed upon calling the registered owner of the truck, Ben Sibu Dlamini. Matsebula said Sibu opened the false compartment by removing some bolts and nuts that were used to screw a foreign metal used to create the compartment.

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