Basotho smugglers carrying R14.5 million plus of contraband found their access to South African consumers summarily halted by South African National Defence Force (SANDF) soldiers patrolling the Free State border with landlocked Lesotho in January.
The mountain kingdom border with the central South Africa province led the unofficial January Operation Corona contraband confiscation stakes. SANDF soldiers on border patrol also seized contraband worth R966 000 in Mpumalanga, R1.2 million in Limpopo, and R55 000 in Kwazulu-Natal.
The SANDF’s Joint Operations Division no longer supplies details of contraband seized but it normally includes cigarettes, liquor, pharmaceuticals, clothing and footwear – often knock-off imitations of brands such as Adidas and Nike.
Operation Corona’s original raison d’etre – to prevent illegal immigration – remains a priority objective for soldiers deployed along South Africa’s land borders with Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe with over a thousand intercepted and handed to the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) and police. Nine-hundred and seven Zimbabweans were intercepted along that country’s 230 km land border with the Limpopo province. A hundred and thirty-one Mozambicans fell foul of South African patrols with a hundred Basotho intercepted along Lesotho’s borders with Eastern Cape and Free State and the balance from Botswana and Namibia.
Drugs, called narcotics by Joint Operations and again not specified, valued at over R2.5 million were taken from smugglers/drug mules along land borders with Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
In what is seen as a first, soldiers based on the South Africa/Zimbabwe border confiscated “boats” – with no further details given – valued at R290 000 in January. Other transport, listed only as stolen vehicles, worth R2.7 million was confiscated along the Mpumalanga/Mozambique and KwaZulu-Natal/Eswatini/Mozambique borders.
Also in January, 10 SA Infantry (SAI) Battalion soldiers deployed on the KwaZulu-Natal border with Lesotho removed cattle worth R2.2 million and “small stock” goats, pigs and sheep worth R279 000 from South African pastureland. Going north east soldiers on the KwaZulu-Natal/Eswatini border impounded cattle valued at more than R1 million grazing illegally with a further R60 000 worth of cattle from Mozambique found on Mpumalanga pastureland.
Soldiers, assisted by police, were involved in the arrests of 80 “criminals”/suspects on the Eswatini/Lesotho/ Mozambique and Zimbabwe land borders. What Joint Operations terms “hand weapons” valued at R9 400 were confiscated along the KwaZulu-Natal borders with Eswatini and Mozambique.
