Syndicates have been bust using MyCiTi buses to shift drugs between Blouberg and the City Bowl.
|||Syndicates have been bust using MyCiTi buses to shift drugs between Blouberg and the City Bowl.
Several drug peddlers have been collared on buses since officers linked to the city’s Public Transport Interchange (PTI) police unit began working with undercover cops three months ago.
Law enforcement authorities say they became aware of the problem in November.
Acting on tip-offs, officers searched “suspicious looking” passengers, said Shaun Smith, the city’s assistant law enforcement chief.
Drugs including heroin, cocaine, tik and unga (dagga mixed with heroin) had been seized.
“We found that many of the people doing it were foreign nationals, sometimes young white females, and it happened mostly in the evenings,” Smith said.
The suspects had been taken aside and searched once the bus stopped.
“When we identify people we try to do it (the searches) as discreetly as possible.”
Smith said smuggling drugs on buses presented a new opportunity for criminals.
“When it started, it was something new and the criminals tend to look for opportunities, for something (that) is new,” he said.
Smith admitted that officers had rarely carried out checks or patrolled the Blouberg-to-city route in the evenings, before they learnt drugs were being smuggled along that corridor.
The Paarden Eiland station area had become a concern.
“We’ve been operating with police intelligence and together we managed to identify some of the people,” he said.
“We will continue to do these checks. They will be very random and sporadic and it will be done with the help of police intelligence. We will work together on the buses.”
Meanwhile, the bicycle patrols introduced by the city had eliminated muggings, said Smith.
Officers on bicycles patrolled the bicycle routes between Blouberg and the city.
He said they used to have on average at least one or two muggings a month.
“But we’ve reduced those numbers to zero.”
Mayoral committee member for safety and security JP Smith said the reports of the drug runners had caught them completely by surprise.
“You think you’re doing something good but then you realise that it’s not just good people who are using the bus service,” Smith said.
He said the addition of units such as the Ghost Squad and the Public Transport Interchange unit had helped with transport policing.
Smith said the safety and security directorate was looking at bringing the four components together to work as a single unit in transport policing, “as they did in other countries”.
The officers were not only looking out for drugs, but also for stolen property and weapons, he said.
He said that if authorities were not looking after the safety of passengers it would be detrimental to transport services.
“If people are too scared to take the bus we are never going to get the uptake we are looking for,” he added.
Western Cape police have confiscated drugs valued at nearly R12 billion since April 2010.
Provincial police commissioner Lieutenant-General Arno Lamoer said the drug trade was contributing to crime figures and that the Western Cape was seen as the province that used drugs the most.
“Drugs are a major contributor to crime in the province. Addicts will steal to feed their habit. The province is also a huge destination for people.
“Eight million people came through between January and December last year via the airport alone. Every single day we confiscate drugs,” he said.
Lamoer added that drugs valued at more than R50m had been confiscated from buses in one week during an operation last month.
He said drug routes into the province had been identified and a range of drugs found.
“Drugs play a huge role in crime in our province. The violent crime and the gangsterism in the Western Cape are all linked to one thing – drugs.” - Cape Argus