Moz seizes 600kg of heroin heading for SA
2013-03-07 17:34
Johannesburg - Mozambican police have seized 600kg of
heroin, one of their biggest ever drugs hauls, hidden in a flat-bed truck they
believe was heading from Kenya to South Africa, newspapers said on Thursday.
Two Guineans arrested told police on the northern border
with Tanzania that the narcotics were fertilizer they were transporting on
behalf of a Congolese national living in Nairobi, the Noticias newspaper said.
They unsuccessfully tried to bribe officers with $60 000,
the paper added.
"The disproportionate height of the truck bed, the
strange scent and the fact that the truck was apparently travelling with no
cargo raised the police's suspicions," police spokeswoman Malva Brito was
quoted as saying.
With its porous borders, loose bank regulations and
strategic location on Africa's east coast, Mozambique has become a trafficking
hub for South American and East Asian drugs headed for Europe and South Africa.
