NDEA joins in regional fight against drug trafficking |25 November 2015

Agents of the National Drugs Enforcement Agency (NDEA) have been attending a series of conferences on the issue of drug trafficking in Asia, East Africa and the Indian Ocean regions that are designed to develop strategies on the best practices to be adopted to halt the dissemination and distribution of up of 800 metric tonnes of hard drugs that emanate on a yearly basis, mostly from Asian and South American countries.

The conferences, which were held in Tanzania, Sri Lanka and Seychelles, were attended by the heads of drug enforcement agencies from more than 20 countries.

Delegates at the conference last week, which was organised by the UK National Crime Agency at the Eden Bleu Hotel, were briefed on recent discoveries on the development of sophisticated concealment methods, including liquidisation and solidification, that mask both the appearance and the true content of the drugs.

Traffickers from these regions using these and other methods are succeeding in the transhipment of drugs into every country in the world.

The conference learned that in several East African countries upwards of one tonne of hard drugs is arriving on their shores every month and transhipped by local traffickers from these locations throughout Africa and into the European Union.

The NDEA and Seychelles have been in the forefront in seizing hard drugs entering the country. This year some R177,000,000 worth of drugs have been seized.
 
The outcome of these seizures is reflected by the fact that five of the top drug dealers in the country are on the run, having fled the country to evade justice leaving their families and businesses behind, several of which are now bankrupt.

Several European countries now have drug enforcement agents stationed throughout East and South Africa in an attempt to halt the flow of drugs into their countries.

A feature of the transhipment of drugs across continents is the use and abuse of methods of transportation of goods and cargo in a variety of transportation methods including planes, ships, containers, buses.

Some traffickers have even resorted to using ambulances to tranship drugs by road to and through a number of European borders.

The NDEA has been playing a key role in contributing to a new strategic approach which seeks to bring together all of the drug enforcement agencies from countries in the region.
 
The series of conferences and workshops have agreed that countries need to cooperate more closely with each other and to share information on the identification, movement and activities of suspects and drug seizures.

A new investigation unit has been trained and deployed to seek to identify and ultimately seize the ill-gotten assets of drug dealers.

The outcome of these investigations is expected to result in court proceedings in the near future.

The recent deployment of police and SPDF personnel to the NDEA has succeeded in virtually eliminating drug related activities in several key areas throughout the country.
 
Three additional dogs have been acquired, trained and are now operating with the existing dog unit.