80 kilos of bhang destined for Z’bar impounded in Dar
What you need to know:
DCEA officers suspected the consignment on Tuesday soon as it arrived at the Kisutu Market from Morogoro on its way to Zanzibar and discovered that the bags which were purported to contain cabbage and onions contained bhang.
Dar es Salaam. The Drug Control and Enforcement Authority (DCEA) officers have intercepted an 80-kilo cargo of marijuana that was concealed among several bags containing cabbages and other vegetables destined for Zanzibar.
DCEA officers suspected the consignment on Tuesday soon as it arrived at the Kisutu Market from Morogoro on its way to Zanzibar and discovered that the bags which were purported to contain cabbage and onions contained bhang.
Faced with less channels for smuggling drugs, traffickers were increasingly becoming more innovative in concealment of illicit substances to avoid detection. DCEA officers started pursuing the consignment soon as it was offloaded at the Kisutu Market and started tracking the haul all the way from the market as it was being ferried to the port on a push-cart.
Four people including a woman from Morogoro said to be owner of the consignment and her father have been arrested. An agent who cleared the consignment at the port and the cart pusher were also being questioned. The officers conducted an intensive checkup on the bag and found huge quantities of marijuana sandwiched in bags containing cabbages and onions.
“They used the vegetables to conceal but we intercepted the bags and sorted out the vegetable only to find over 80 kilos of marijuana,” said the newly appointed DCE commissioner for operations Lieutenant Colonel Frederick Milanzi.
He said officers were now working to identify and arrest each and every person connected to the haul in Mainland and Zanzibar.
DCEA has recently recorded significant seizure of marijuana. Last time, a total of 500 bags of marijuana were intercepted at Lenglong Village in Arumeru District in Arusha Region during a midnight operation.
The seizure is among the largest cargo of cannabis to be impounded in a single operation also include six bags of marijuana seeds.
Two weeks before, the authority intercepted 168 bags of bhang at Engedeko Village in the same district. Many of Arumeru villages are infamous for marijuana and khat cultivation.
