The thin camouflage line of SA National Defence Force (SANDF) soldiers patrolling all seven South African land borders under Operation Corona in July intercepted, among others, smugglers laden with millions of rands worth of drugs and other contraband.
Statistics provided by the SANDF for 1-31 July indicate R1.88 million worth of drugs were seized on South Africa’s borders, but it appears a massive R5.8 million dagga confiscation by 8 SA Infantry (SAI) Battalion on the Eswatini/South Africa border on 31 July missed last month’s statistics. Soldiers discovered 28 apparently abandoned bags of dagga in a substantial haul.
Contraband worth R5 million was last month confiscated by the 15 military companies on border patrol, drawn mainly from the regular and reserve components of the SA Army Infantry Formation supported by the Armour Formation, in the form of Tempe based 1 Special Services Battalion (SSB).
Soldiers were busiest on the Limpopo/Zimbabwe border regarding contraband, netting R4.3 million worth of items presumed to be cigarettes, liquor, pharmaceuticals, branded fake clothing and footwear, amongst others.
Meanwhile, a joint SANDF/SA Police Service operation on 18 July saw R6 million worth of illicit cigarettes intercepted from a suspicious truck near Underberg. The truck contained 300 boxes of Boss cigarettes.
The flow of illegal immigrants to South Africa continues unabated with soldiers intercepting 918 along six borders. As is customary Basotho – 431 – make up the largest number of “undocumented persons” followed by Zimbabweans (256) and Mozambicans (222) with Namibians (five) and Batswana (four) trailing far behind.
In addition to illegal immigrants, soldiers apprehended 68 criminals on South Africa’s borders in July, and recovered R11 million worth of stolen vehicles, the majority seized on the South Africa/Zimbabwe border.
Soldiers based along Lesotho’s Free State and Eastern Cape borders seemingly find themselves as livestock protectors. This is mainly due to Basotho pastoralists using South African land to graze their cattle, sheep and goats. Joint Operations reported the value of livestock moved back to the landlocked country is valued at R3.7 million.
Soldiers posted on the KwaZulu-Natal border also took on the shepherd role sending “small stock” (goats and sheep) worth R45 000 back to President Felipe Nyusi’s country while in Limpopo, soldiers recovered illegally grazing cattle worth R376 000.
