Gaborone, Botswana – The police in Botswana say drug trafficking is reaching its climax in the country with the arrest of several foreigners caught in possession of drugs like cocaine and ecstasy – a psychedelic drug sold in secret.
In a statement here, Botswana police spokesman, Christopher Mbulawa, fingered some car dealers and foreigners as the people bringing drugs into the country.
Speaking to a local weekly newspaper, The Botswana Gazette, Thursday, the police officer said they had caught a few people in possession of the illegal drugs.
He said: “Last year, we registered six cases of cocaine, weighing 22 grammes, in which seven people were implicated ÔÇö two Batswana, three Zimbabweans, a Malawian and a South African.
“This year there were two cases of cocaine, weighing 43 grammes, and 12 tablets of ecstasy.”
A 48-year-old Malawian, Mac Chigauli Malidandi, recently appeared before a magistrate in Gaborone, charged with possession of cocaine weighing 5.746 grammes.
The suspect claimed the cocaine was stuff for making perfumes, saying that a friend of his gave him the stuff in compensation for a debt of 15,000 pula which he owed him.
The Malawian was arrested in the house of an Indian friend who turned out to be a car dealer.
Mbulawa said the police had beefed up security in all the country’s borders.
He said car dealers, buying used Japanese cars in Durban, South Africa, to sell in Botswana, must be the people bringing in the drugs by hiding them in their cars.
Police investigation has revealed that haulage trucks and cross border commercial buses are also being used in drug trafficking.
It is alleged that the demand for drug use is now very high in Botswana and drugs, like cocaine, are no longer expensive to the addicts because they are now available locally.
