MAPUTO POLICE ON ALERT AFTER DRUG BUST

Johannesburg

THE Mozambican police were placed on maximum alert this week for drug
traffickers, said to be using Maputo International Airport as a point of
transit, according to Nataniel Macamo, head of public relations in the
interior ministry.

The Mozambique Information Agency reported Macamo as saying traffickers
were bringing cocaine from Latin America to South Africa, via Maputo. "The
planes they catch take them from Brazil via Lisbon to Maputo," he said.

The traffickers, mostly women, were working for a powerful network, with
headquarters in SA, and had chosen Maputo as a safe corridor.

Macamo was speaking after the arrest of a South African woman the second
arrest in 10 days at Maputo airport at the weekend. The woman was found to
be carrying "30 balls of cocaine", each weighing five grams, in her stomach.

Zelda Haas, 25, was flying from Sao Paulo, Brazil, via Lisbon, with an
onward connection to SA. Another SA woman, Singathawa Mandongana, who was
allegedly carrying 700g of cocaine, had followed the same route and was
arrested at Maputo airport last week, thanks to cooperation with the
Portuguese police.

Haas told police that she should have been carrying 69 balls of the drug,
but she had "complications" in swallowing them and fainted.

Her companions decided to stop after she had swallowed only 30 balls, and
submitted her to intensive treatment before she left.

She also explained that she had been scheduled to depart on October 19, but
the trip was postponed after the news of the arrest of Mandongana.

The two suspects are in police custody in Maputo, and the police hope for
more arrests.