Bad trip as mammoth ‘drug’ haul turns sour

IT was a potential mammoth drug bust that wasn’t.

The Port Elizabeth Hawks spent two days testing three metric tons of a substance which they suspected was cocaine, only to discover it was not an illegal drug.

The container, which was packed with 120 packets each weighing 25kg, was discovered at midday on Tuesday at a shipping container depot in Burman Road.

If the white substance had turned out to be cocaine, it would have been one of the largest drug busts in South Africa.

According to depot staff, the container was marked as transporting animal feed destined for Nelson Mandela Bay.

The Hawks, customs and border police opened the container on Tuesday and started testing the substance the same day.

Provincial Hawks spokeswoman Captain Anelisa Feni said their Port Elizabeth office, together with the border police, had received a tip-off about suspect packages being stored at a depot.

“I can confirm that we tested the packages, which came back as negative for drugs.

“We had taken random samples that had been sent to our forensic laboratory for testing,” she said.

Feni said that while they did not know what the substance was, it was not an illegal drug.

She said the container was being released and no further tests would be done. – Gareth Wilson