Barely two weeks after the execution of an SA drug mule in China and the arrest of another in Thailand, three SA women have been arrested in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Nigeria for drug trafficking.
The New Age newspaper reported on Wednesday issue that police at Harare International Airport in Zimbabwe arrested a young woman who arrived on a flight from India with 2kg of cocaine in her possession.
She is due to appear in court in the Zimbabwe capital on Thursday.
She left Johannesburg for India on December 15, exactly two days after South African Nobanda Nolubabalo was arrested in Thailand when police discovered 1.5kg of cocaine concealed in her fake dreadlocks.
New Age reported that the woman arrested in Harare had four passports in her possession and that her friends spoke of her working as a mule for a South African drug lord who recruits mules in the Johannesburg suburbs of Rosettenville and Turffontein.
“The woman controlling the business is a South African who recruits the girls and rents passports from Zimbabweans who are desperate for cash,” the paper quoted a friend of the arrested woman saying.
Mule in Mozambique
In neighbouring Mozambique, police arrested a South African woman for carrying drugs when she entered the country at Maputo International Airport on Christmas Eve, the news agency AIM reported on Tuesday.
Promise Mpala (26) had travelled from Addis Ababa on an Ethiopian Airways flight. She was carrying an unspecified amount of drugs in one of her bags, according to the report.
The drug was detected by the scanner through which all items of luggage of arriving passengers must pass. It had not yet been established exactly what type of drug Mpala was carrying.
Narcotics in Nigeria
Meanwhile, Agence France-Presse reported that a 38-year-old South African woman was arrested for drug trafficking in Nigeria last week.
Nene Fikile Happy-girl, and a Nigerian, Onyemaechi Remigus Chibuzor (29) were arrested last week at the Lagos international airport as they tried to board an Emirates flight to Malaysia.
They were found in possession of methamphetamine, Nigeria’s anti-drug agency said. — Sapa