Cocaine bust in sleepy Saldanha

Ray Smuts THE townsfolk of sleepy Saldanha Bay had a lot more to talk about than mundane fish catches last weekend when police netted South AfricaÕs largest ever cocaine shipment - 116kg of the destructive stuff - from a foreign bulk carrier. It all happened after owners and managers of the unidentified Greek-owned vessel en route from Argentina to China diverted it to Saldanha after some of the cocaine had been discovered during the voyage. Once there, the master of the vessel handed police 10 packets of cocaine wrapped in transparent plastic sheeting which had been discovered by the crew in the hull of the ship during cleaning operations. Police and diving units boarded the vessel, searched the cooling water intake in the hull and found another 43 packets of cocaine. In total, the snatch has a street sale value of around R250 million. Now the South African authorities have requested the assistance of Interpol to help identify and crack a suspected worldwide drug cartel. The fully-laden vessel which sailed from Bahia Blanca had been partially loaded in the ports of Diamante and Rosario on the Parana River in Argentina.