A truck load of dagga with an estimated street value of R1.2 million was confiscated after police stopped the truck at the back of Shoprite in Market Square Mall yesterday afternoon.
A truck load of dagga with an estimated street value of R1.2 million was confiscated after police stopped the truck at the back of Shoprite in Market Square Mall yesterday afternoon.
According to SAPS duty officer Superintendent Martha Mankayi, the police had received information which they had been following. Yesterday, Inspector Dawie Barnard and Inspector Marius Herselman from Crime Intelligence, who were working in one of their anti-crime operations, followed the truck and stopped it in the Shoprite parking lot.
In the back of the white truck, they found 24 bags containing dagga.
Superintendent Mankayi told Grocott’s Mail late yesterday that the street value of the marijuana was said to be R1.2-million.
She said that police arrested one suspect who was found in the vehicle. The man, who appeared to be quite young, was closely guarded by two police officers who were both armed with rifles. The truck is believed to be from the Free State.
A crowd of curious onlookers crowded into the area near the taxi rank in the parking lot. They watched in awe as workers from local towing company, Valley Trucks, battled to load the dagga truck onto the tow truck. The truck was so laden with dagga that it was too heavy for the tow truck and about five police officers dressed in civilian clothing had to take turns removing some of the bags from the truck and loading them into a SAPS bakkie.
Shocked at the number of bags of dagga, onlookers, some of whom had taken a break from shopping to witness the spectacle, used their cellphones to take pictures. Some even took the opportunity to have some fun by counting out loud as each bag was loaded into the police bakkie.
“There must be millions worth of dagga in that truck. This guy must be a millionaire,” exclaimed one onlooker.
The estimated value of yesterday’s hit was just short of last year’s which was said to have a street value of R1.3-million.
At the time, police referred to it as the biggest drug bust of the year in Grahamstown. An Isuzu bakkie with a long-wheel base was travelling along the N2 bypass past the George Street turnoff when it was stopped in November last year. Nineteen maize meal bags with an estimated weight of 60kg each, as well as 22 half-full bags were found with dagga inside. Grahamstown police also confiscated dagga with a street value of R105 000 last year at a separate roadblock.
