Dagga merchants have increasingly turned to long-distance buses to transport drugs, say police. Grocott's Mail asked Grahamstown police if long-distance were being specially targeted for raids, following reports from several passengers.
Dagga merchants have increasingly turned to long-distance buses to transport drugs, say police. Grocott's Mail asked Grahamstown police if long-distance were being specially targeted for raids, following reports from several passengers.
Police spokesperson Captain Mali Govender said the police had regular check points in and around Grahamstown.
"We catch people randomly. We stop taxis, private cars and all sorts of vehicles. [Drug-transporting] has just become more prevalent in buses," she said.
Frequent long-distance bus passengers say while the buses are not stopped often, police do stop them mid-journey to conduct searches.
An Extension 4 resident who spoke on condition of anonymity said her bus to Cape Town at the beginning of the month had been stopped.
"The previous time a bus I was travelling on was stopped by police officers looking for drugs was three years ago," she said.
She said that time, the police had told them they were looking for someone they believed had boarded the bus.
"They searched and found a bag containing drugs, but could not trace the owner of the bag in the bus," she said.
Police said it's tricky at times to identify the culprits in buses because there are so many passengers.
Govender said the police have found it difficult to identify the owners of abandoned parcels.
"It's difficult to charge the driver of the bus, because there are a lot of people in it," Govender said.
Another regular bus user from Extension 2, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, told Grocott's Mail she believed the searches were often a result of tip-offs from community members.
"It does not happen very often. I think police officers are tipped off," she said.
She said her bus had been stopped in George, en route to Cape Town, and the police had searched the bus for drugs.
"They used dogs. They looked all around the bus and went on to search the luggage compartment, where they found the drugs," she said.
Govender said the drug most commonly found during local operations was dagga.
