Dibete police battle dagga smuggling
Pini Bothoko | Tuesday March 22, 2022 06:00
For years, the Botswana Police Service has been battling to contain the rising cases of dagga smuggling, despite police presence along the borders. Dibete police are adamant dagga is smuggled from the southern part of Botswana, suspecting the product is smuggled into the country from South Africa.
Dibete Police station commander, superintendent Meshack Ranku said they are battling the increase in marijuana smuggling from the south of Botswana at the Dibete checkpoint.
He disclosed to have recently seized a large consignment of 50kg from a private car heading to the northern part of the country from Gaborone. “We are battling to keep up with dagga smuggling from the southern part of Botswana. From January to date we have recorded four cases of dagga smuggling at the checkpoint with the largest weighing 50kg. "We suspect that dagga might be smuggled from South Africa because Ramatlabama police are unable to keep up with the rising drug smuggling incidents from the neighbouring country,” he said.
Ranku said some consignments were seized from passengers in public transport, such as buses, and private cars. Furthermore, Ranku said efforts are in place to establish the source but they suspect that the product is being smuggled into the country from South Africa. “Drug use amongst Batswana remains a concern but it concerns us because looking at its quantity, it shows that they are going to sell it. "These mules usually travel at night like the recent one in which we confiscated 50kg of dagga at around 2am,” Ranku said.
Recently, Palapye police arrested a 17-year-old Swaneng Secondary School male student with eight sachets and four wrapped pieces of marijuana suspected he might have been selling to other learners. Meanwhile, Ranku also disclosed to be battling with transportation of cigarettes and copper from the northern part of Botswana to the southern part.
He revealed to be currently investigating three cases of copper theft, three cases of smuggling of cigarettes and two cases of smuggling of potatoes. “We recently seized 40 bags of potatoes smuggled from South Africa into the country. We have also confiscated eight bottles of suspected ARVs, 185 family contraceptive pills, 118 bottles of brandy and 15 boxes of Grandpa containing 144 sachets,” Ranku said .