Pretoria: THE South African National Defence Force (SANDF) has seized contraband items worth R70 000 on the border between South Africa and Mozambique as part of its duties to secure the country’s porous borders.
The SANDF said that on 27 June at about 2 am in the morning, Bravo Section of Bravo Company of 4 South African Infantry Battalion was conducting a foot patrol along the borderline between South Africa and Mozambique when they spotted ten men and four women carrying 14 bales of contraband.
As the section approached, they dropped the contraband and ran into Mozambique. As South African soldiers cannot cross the borderline in pursuit, the suspects got away. However, the contraband, comprising second hand clothes, was seized and valued by the South African Revenue Service at R70 000.
The Department of Defence said that as a sovereign state, South Africa has a duty to safeguard its borders against the possibility of transnational crime, international crime syndicates and cartels, the illegal flow of undocumented migrants, and illicit economic activities.
Over the next three years, R3.1 billion has been allocated to deploy 15 companies along South Africa’s borders with Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland and Zimbabwe.
Source: Defence Web
