SA WINNING THE WAR AGAINST DRUGS: NQAKULA

South Africa was "winning the war" against drug abuse among the country's
citizens, Safety and Security minister Charles Nqakula said on Monday.

"We are winning the war because we have on our side good, law-abiding
citizens," he said at a media briefing following a police raid earlier the
day which netted 100,000 Mandrax tablets valued at approximately R3.5
million. One man, 33, was arrested.

Nqakula said the raid, which followed a tip-off from members of the public,
showed that as long as the "forces that represent the good" were more than
those causing problems, the country would continue winning against
criminality and criminals.

He said Monday's early-morning raid in Elsies River formed part of ongoing
investigations by the South African Police Service into the activities of
drug syndicates operating in the Western Cape.

Without providing names for fear of compromising the investigations, the
minister said the first breakthrough into this particular drug syndicate
occurred last year when police arrested three men in Kuils River and
confiscated drugs with a street value of about R3.2 million.

This bust led to police arresting another three people from the same
syndicate in Leeu Gamka in the Karoo in May this year, where police
confiscated drugs to the value of R2 million.

According to Nqakula, to date nine alleged syndicate members had been
arrested and drugs with the street value of about R9 million seized.

Nqakula said police were currently "hot on the heels" of another two
suspects linked to Monday morning's raid.

He said all the suspects appeared to be connected to one person, a so-called
"high-flyer" criminal, one of 32 targeted in the Western Cape and part of
200 nationally the police were after.

"We know his many hiding places and his modus operandi," warned Nqakula.

Asked about government's plan to deal with the burgeoning drug problem among
Western Cape youth, particularly the "tik-tik" (methamphetamine) explosion,
Nqakula said an arrest on Friday of a dealer, who was found in possession of
R20,000 in cash and R12,000 worth of the drug, was a "heavy blow" to drug
peddlers.

He appealed to the public to come forward and help smash drug gangs and
ensure that children, many of school-going age, were safe from the drug
scourge.

According to deputy national police commissioner Andre Pruis, the police and
every government department were working on "mini-drug master plans" to form
part of a revised national drug master plan, run under the auspices of the
Central Drug Authority.

Pruis said there were 177 crime syndicates operating in South Africa, of
which 65 were drug-related, including those with connections to the Chinese
Triad and Russian Mafia.

On the monitoring of drugs, captain Johan Smit of the Western Cape Organised
Crime Unit said the police's Chemical Monitoring Programme monitored the
import and export of specifically 24 chemicals that could be used in the
manufacture of illegal drugs.

Smit said the last eight months had seen the closure of "four to five cat"
(a synthetic stimulant made from a chemical form of methcathinone)
laboratories in Cape Town alone.

Smit told Sapa that they were looking at chemical companies' compliance with
the Drug and Drug Trafficking Act of 1992, but admitted that it was
difficult to monitor all the chemicals, with many such as acetone, used in
the manufacture of "tik."