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Dar es Salaam – The Anti-Drug Authority has arrested three suspects in what detectives say is a breakthrough in exposing new tactics the ‘mules’ were using to continue trafficking narcotics.
The arrests were of a 25-year-old janitor in Dar es Salaam and two male suspects in Kigoma, who were charged with separate charges of trafficking in prohibited drugs in the country. Both were arrested in an undercover operation that lasted several days of surveillance.
According to the Commissioner General of the Drug Enforcement and Control Authority (DCEA), James Kaji, the arrests are testimony to the continued efforts to overcome the changing tactics of traffickers.
He warned that some drug dealers were cunningly luring Tanzanian women into the business by marrying them and then turning them into ‘mules’, unknowingly or knowingly. Yesterday she was addressing a press conference in Dar es Salaam.
The woman, identified as Mary Edson, was arrested while mailing two books to India containing about 450 grams of heroin. The books were reportedly sent to him from Uganda by a Nigerian man with whom he had lived briefly. She has a son begotten by the Nigerian who moved to Uganda and continues to live in Uganda, from where she sent the books for shipment to India.
“According to her, the books she was sending were for her boyfriend in Uganda, who wanted them to be mailed to a friend in India. She has done so at least three other times,” Kaji said. The woman, who resides in Tegeta, was arrested on September 17 when she tried to send the two books. But she was also found with a heroin scale at her home, suggesting she knew what she was doing. She claimed that her Nigerian boyfriend left the machine.
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On September 22, the authority also arrested two people in the Kigoma region who were on their way to send 243.7 kilograms of khat.
Kaji said that the first defendant, George Justin Mathew, 21, was in possession of two boxes weighing 16.5 kilograms each.
“The suspect is a resident of Kigoma Urban and was arrested at the post office trying to ship the drugs,” he said.
Alex Benedicto, 31, was the other culprit who was apprehended the same day with eight packages of khat in two boxes of 16 kilograms each.
He said the defendant is from Kasulu and that he was shipping the drugs through postal services.
“We discovered that there were more boxes in Dar es Salaam with 279 kilograms of khat, with the same address, so a total of 347 kilograms of khat were recovered,” Kaji said.
He said that khat traders, whose main source is Ethiopia, have changed their route because they no longer use Arusha or Dar, but have moved to Kigoma.
Kaji said that dealers should not think that the Authority is not paying attention due to ongoing election campaigns.
He also thanked the work done by shipping companies like Posta and EMS that cooperated in the arrest of the culprits.
