Drug smugglers unsuccessfully used courier companies to try to get heroin into South Africa twice this week, said officials on Tuesday.
In the first incident, drug smugglers in Pakistan tried to use a South African High Commission official envelope to courier high-grade heroin to Johannesburg through Federal Express (Fedex), said the Department of Foreign Affairs.
In the second, police said they had seized a package being sent through DHL when it was in transit at the Port Elizabeth airport.
Foreign Affairs spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said someone pretending to be an official from the South African High Commission in Islamabad, Pakistan, went to a Fedex office in Islamabad on Saturday and tried to send a package to Johannesburg in an official High Commission envelope.
Fedex officials became suspicious when the person tried to use a false account number, evaded questions and left. The package was found to contain high-grade heroin.
The Pakistani Anti-Narcotics Force is investigating, said Mamoepa.
”The South African government condemns these attempts at misusing official government stationery for nefarious activities,” said Mamoepa.
Mamoepa said it was the first time he was aware of an attempt to smuggle drugs using South African government envelopes, either in Pakistan or other countries.
”We’ve got no such precedent.”
He wasn’t sure how the drug smuggler obtained the envelope and said that would form part of the Pakistani authorities’ investigation.
On Monday, police in Port Elizabeth seized a courier company package containing heroin at the airport and arrested a man and a woman, who were due in court on Wednesday.
Superintendent Johann van Greunen said a narcotics dog indicated that the package contained drugs.
”They then opened the boxed parcel and found it full of books. On searching the book covers, a total of 600g of pure heroin was found,” said Van Greunen.
The estimated street value was R1-million.
The package was being sent through the DHL courier company.
An official at the DHL office in Walmer, Port Elizabeth, said the company had been asked not to comment at all on the matter by the police.
Captain Ernest Sigobe said such seizures were not common and this was the first this year. — Sapa