CAPE TOWN: The gold was found in the pockets and a moneybag of a male passenger who was hiding it under a Kurta worn over his clothing.
South African Revenue Service Customs officials have confiscated gold worth almost R3 million at the King Shaka International Airport.
In a second bust in KwaZulu-Natal‚ officials intercepted Ecstasy tablets in a suspicious parcel.
The gold was found in the pockets and a moneybag of a male passenger who was hiding it under a Kurta worn over his clothing.
The luggage of the passenger‚ disembarking from Dubai last week‚ was searched in the common search room after being profiled by the Customs Passengers team‚ SARS said in a statement on Thursday.
Although nothing untoward was found in his luggage‚ the “bulging pockets” under his Kurta convinced an alert official to inspect further.
He found 48 gold bars weighing 5.6kg in the passenger’s pockets and a money bag wrapped around his waist.
“The case is still in an investigation stage‚ and the suspect has not yet appeared in court‚” SARS said.
Also in Durban‚ as part of a random search at the Customs Mail Centre‚ Customs officials scanned an airmail parcel posted in the Netherlands to a Durban address.
The content was declared as a “car cover/ plant cover/ dog bag E130”.
The parcel was selected for further investigation after the scan showed what appeared to be a large amount of tablets in square packages.
Officials subsequently found several packets of white tablets taped to the products that were mailed. The tablets were stuck onto brown and black sticky tape to form two packages‚ which were glued to the inside of both the car cover and plant cover‚ and thereafter folded neatly into plastic bags with outer advertising packaging confirming the products to be a car and plant cover respectively.
The tablets have since been confirmed to be methylenedioxy-methamphetamine (Ecstasy tablets).
The packets containing the tablets weighed 1‚8 kg‚ and has a street value of about R310‚000. SARS said it was detained for handover to the South African Police.
