SA DRUGS POLICE SEIZE TEDDY BEARS

South African police have seized a shipment of Chinese teddy bears
which were being used to smuggle an illegal drug. The bears were
stuffed with a million tablets of mandrax - one of South Africa's
most popular narcotics - with a street value of about 40 million rand
($5m).

Mandrax Street names: buttons, knopies, mandies, barry whites, pille,
MX, originals Types: germans, lizards, bandits, blou bulle,
golfsticks, beiruts, wagon wheels, flamingos, drunken monkey

Police raided a warehouse in the east coast port of Durban, where
they discovered the teddies packed in cardboard boxes.

But the soft toys were full of hard drugs - the tablets were tightly
wrapped and packed into the bellies of the bears.

They are believed to have been shipped in from China, and to have
been destined for local drugs barons.

Detained

Four adult men and a 14-year-old boy were detained for questioning.

The white tablets are usually crushed and smoked

South African Broadcasting Corporation said the drugs haul was the
biggest ever in KwaZulu-Natal Province.

Mandrax, a synthetic depressant, is popular in South Africa thanks to
its relatively cheap street price.

Containing the psychoactive ingredient methaqualone, mandrax in South
Africa usually takes the form of white tablets.

These tablets are often crushed and smoked in a broken bottle neck,
sometimes in combination with marijuana.

Big business

Since the opening up of South Africa's borders seven years ago with
the end of apartheid drug smuggling has become big business.

Syndicates from Nigeria, Colombia and China, and the Russian and
Italian mafias have all moved into South Africa.

They sometimes use the country as a route to get drugs into the rest
of the continent.