KRUGERSDORP – Police arrested five South Africans after uncovering a suspected multimillion-rand drug manufacturing laboratory on a farm in Krugersdorp on Thursday morning, the second such raid in two days.
Officers found quantities of Mandrax and ecstasy tablets during the operation, led by the South African Police Service’s national Crime Intelligence unit and the Hawks.
National police spokesperson Brigadier Athlenda Mathe said the five people found on the premises had been arrested. The farm remained an active crime scene as investigators assessed the operation.
“Senior SAPS officers are en route to the scene, where further assessments and investigations are underway,” police said in a statement.
Police had not yet disclosed the quantity of drugs seized or an estimated value for the drugs and equipment.
Inside the suspected drug laboratory
Photographs released by police show rooms containing racks of trays, large drums and industrial equipment.
Two wheeled steel racks hold more than a dozen trays each, containing a brownish powder. Nearby, large black drums stand on wooden pallets, filled with a similar granular substance.
Other images show machinery covered with stained cloths, stacked metal trays, plastic crates and buckets coated in powder. A warehouse area contains a forklift, a gas cylinder and other equipment.
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Police have not identified the substances visible in the photographs.
One image shows four men lying face down on a concrete surface, with their hands secured behind their backs. Video footage shows handcuffed suspects lying on grass beneath a tree while uniformed officers wearing face masks secure the scene.
Second drug lab raid in two days
The Krugersdorp operation followed Tuesday’s raid on a plot in Skeerpoort, near Hartbeespoort Dam, where North West police dismantled a suspected Mandrax laboratory.
Members of Hartbeespoort Crime Prevention, Brits Crime Prevention and the Hartbeespoort K9 unit arrested four people: a 39-year-old Zimbabwean man and three women aged between 23 and 29.
Officers seized a rifle, three handguns, processed drugs, a drug production mixture and manufacturing equipment.
North West police spokesperson Colonel Adele Myburgh said the suspects faced charges of possessing unlicensed firearms and ammunition, and dealing in and manufacturing drugs under the Drugs and Drug Trafficking Act of 1992. They were expected to appear in the Brits Magistrate’s Court.
The two operations follow other major drug laboratory raids this year.
In September, the Hawks, Crime Intelligence, the West Rand K9 unit and the Special Task Force raided a smallholding in Erasmia, west of Pretoria. Police valued the drugs and equipment at about R110 million and said the facility could produce up to 800,000 Mandrax tablets a day.
Two Mozambican nationals were arrested. Officers also found a second laboratory on the property where preparations for crystal meth production were allegedly underway.
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In August, police uncovered a crystal meth laboratory in Musina, Limpopo, valued at more than R600 million. Two Mexican nationals, two Zimbabweans and a Malawian were arrested.
Concern over drug manufacturing on farms
The Moral Regeneration Movement in North West welcomed the Skeerpoort arrests on Wednesday, but warned that drug syndicates were using remote farming areas to conceal their operations.
Its provincial convenor, Pastor Lesiba Kgwele, said recent raids in the province pointed to manufacturing operations supported by wider distribution networks. He urged police to pursue those organising and financing the trade.
“Though we are encouraged that there still exists capacity within the SAPS to mount such a thorough investigation by dedicated police officers, we can only celebrate the successful arrests when all the mastermind/s behind the drug cartels that must have been supported by a sophisticated logistics to move the drugs around is completely dismantled,” Kgwele said.
He also called for a review of the government’s rural safety plan to address changing crime patterns.
“The rural safety plan should be urgently reviewed to tackle the emerging crime patterns that are migrating to farming communities to send an unequivocal message that such communities are not safe havens for manufacturing of drugs that are destroying families and the future of our young people,” he said.
Kgwele urged communities to work together in “reclaiming Ubuntu and addressing moral decay.”
Investigations continue
Police said details of the charges against the five Krugersdorp suspects and their court appearance would be released once investigators had finished processing the scene.
