By far – in monetary terms – the most successful part of the Operation Corona border protection tasking in November was the confiscation of narcotics valued at over R8 million by the Joint Operations Division of the SA National Defence Force (SANDF).

This is more than the R6.7 million worth of unspecified narcotics taken from smugglers in October with Mozambicans again the biggest culprits. In October soldiers working the Mpumalanga/Mozambique border relieved smugglers of narcotics worth R5.6 million – last month the narcotics haul along the same stretch of land border was valued at  R5.9 million.

Mozambicans attempting to smuggle drugs into South Africa via the KwaZulu-Natal border, along with Swazis coming over the same land border but in a different area, were nabbed with R2.9 million worth of drugs. Joint Operations doesn’t specify the types and amounts of drugs confiscated and handed to police, but the list is usually topped by dagga.

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