Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you very much for joining us here this afternoon. Let us me start by congratulating the Provincial Commissioner Lieutenant-General Ngobeni and the team for a job well done. What we are announcing here today is a gigantic success.
It is a clear demonstration of what can be achieved when are focused and work together as a team. We are hard at work to ensure that we use our resources effectively to relentlessly pursue criminals.
These drugs that we uncovered destroy the lives of our people who use them, especially the youth. They also are a huge contributor to other related crimes such as murder and robberies.
I recently stated that I have issued an instruction that Crime Intelligence identify the top 15 syndicates in the country and work together with the detectives and the hawks to go after these syndicates operating in serious crime such as drugs, cash in transit, human trafficking, money laundering, arms and ammunition.
Furthermore, I instructed them to also pay close attention to the so called known criminals. All provinces have now drawn up a list of top 30 wanted suspects.
Last night, during an Intelligence driven operation our members from the Umhlali K9; Umhlali Task Team; Phoenix Crime intelligence and Tactical Response Team successfully uncovered the biggest drug lab - let me repeat - the biggest drug lab to ever be exposed in the drug operations not only in KwaZulu-Natal but the whole of South Africa. I am sure I speak not only on behalf of the South African Police Service but the entire country when I say: thank you, thank you very much to all the individual police officers who worked tirelessly to bring about this success.
During the operation, the police arrested three males aged 23, 55 and 56.
It all started when the members from the Phoenix crime intelligence were following information of a Drug Lab operating in the Kloof area. After gathering enough intelligence, the members decided to operationalize the information. Relevant units were summoned for back up, these members proceeded to the premises in the Kloof area. Upon searching the premises, they found 3 men in the premises then discovered 50kg bags of suspected pure Heroine powder as well as industrial manufacturing machines, scale and containers. We are still counting these 50kg bags but at the last count, we had counted more than 200 bags. The total estimated value is worth more than R3 billion.
The three arrested suspects will be charged with manufacturing of drugs and are expected to appear in the Pinetown Magistrates’ Court on Friday the 27 June 2014.
This success may the largest this country has ever seen but it is not this first of its kind and will I do not think it will be the last. On 30 December 2013 during a joint operation executed by members of the SAPS and Durban Metro police made a breakthrough when they arrested a total of eleven suspects aged between 23 and 45 years old for drugs in Durban North. Members received information on drugs being at a certain premises in the Umhlanga area, Durban North. A search warrant was obtained and members proceeded to an identified premise and confronted eleven occupants who were found allegedly busy packing the drugs into straws destined for the street market.
Two children aged 9 and 3 years old who were in the premises were removed to a place of safety. The arrested suspects were six women and five men including a foreigner from Burundi. The members recovered a total of 100 000 mandrax tablets, a quantity of sugars as well as heroin powder to the street value of approximately R5 million. The arrested suspects will appear in the Durban Magistrate court on Thursday, 2 January 2013 facing charges of dealing in drugs.
As we had promised, we are working tirelessly to bring these criminals to book. We will continue to expose those that live in the lap of luxury and profit from the misery of ordinary citizens on the ground. Our detectives will continue with this investigation until everyone behind this find is behind bars.
