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The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
Bernard James
13 January 2012
Dar es Salaam - Anti-drugs police yesterday seized a record 210 kilogrammes of heroin worth a staggering Sh9.4 billion in the south-eastern region of Lindi.It is the largest drug haul in the last two decades as authorities in the country intensified the war against drug trafficking and abuse.
The seizure came after the police, acting on a tip off from an informant, stormed at the house of a woman at Mchinga area in Lindi municipality and found her with three accomplices hiding in the house and in possession of the illegal substance.
The four suspects, two of them women, were arrested in the wee hours of yesterday as they were planning to transport the cargo to Dar es Salaam. The suspects are all Tanzanians.
"Upon being tipped off I sent a task force from Dar es Salaam to work with their counterparts in Lindi to arrest the suspects and foil their plan," head of Anti Drugs Unit (ADU), Senior Assistant Commissioner of Police (SACP), Godfrey Nzowa, told The Citizen on telephone yesterday.
Yesterday's seizure is the biggest since the Anti Drugs Unit (ADU) was formed in 1990 and since the formation of the special presidential task force on drugs in 2006.
The consignment was to be transported to Dar es Salaam, which is becoming an easy route for drugs transported to Europe and other parts of the world.
Mr Nzowa said the drug dealers who used to offload their consignment on beaches in Tanga and Bagamoyo have turned to the southern regions of Lindi and Mtwara as the entry points of drugs from Iran and Afghanistan due to intensified boarder security checks on the north-eastern coast.
The seizure comes as the United Nations warned through a report that East African countries have been receiving more Afghanistan heroin inflows as the region emerges as a conducive drug trafficking route to Europe, North America and other parts of the world.
Released last year, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) says drug traffickers, faced with tough restrictions to transit through Asia and Middle East, have turned to Africa, particularly East Africa, as their preferred routes for heroin shipment to Europe and elsewhere.
According to the report, weak African economies are particularly vulnerable, as drug trafficking organisations are able to exploit the low surveillance capacity at seaports, airports and other illegal entry points.
"Minimal scrutiny and law enforcement at ports of entry have encouraged drug traffickers to transit heroin from Pakistan or Gulf countries through East Africa," read part of the report.
Bernard James
13 January 2012
The seizure came after the police, acting on a tip off from an informant, stormed at the house of a woman at Mchinga area in Lindi municipality and found her with three accomplices hiding in the house and in possession of the illegal substance.
"Upon being tipped off I sent a task force from Dar es Salaam to work with their counterparts in Lindi to arrest the suspects and foil their plan," head of Anti Drugs Unit (ADU), Senior Assistant Commissioner of Police (SACP), Godfrey Nzowa, told The Citizen on telephone yesterday.
Yesterday's seizure is the biggest since the Anti Drugs Unit (ADU) was formed in 1990 and since the formation of the special presidential task force on drugs in 2006.
Mr Nzowa said the drug dealers who used to offload their consignment on beaches in Tanga and Bagamoyo have turned to the southern regions of Lindi and Mtwara as the entry points of drugs from Iran and Afghanistan due to intensified boarder security checks on the north-eastern coast.
The seizure comes as the United Nations warned through a report that East African countries have been receiving more Afghanistan heroin inflows as the region emerges as a conducive drug trafficking route to Europe, North America and other parts of the world.
Released last year, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) says drug traffickers, faced with tough restrictions to transit through Asia and Middle East, have turned to Africa, particularly East Africa, as their preferred routes for heroin shipment to Europe and elsewhere.
According to the report, weak African economies are particularly vulnerable, as drug trafficking organisations are able to exploit the low surveillance capacity at seaports, airports and other illegal entry points.
"Minimal scrutiny and law enforcement at ports of entry have encouraged drug traffickers to transit heroin from Pakistan or Gulf countries through East Africa," read part of the report.
