OR Tambo link to 20% of Hong Kong airport drug busts — official

Hong Kong prison chaplain John Wotherspoon says nearly 20% of all people arrested in Hong Kong airport in 2018 and 2019 for the possession of illegal substances brought drugs from Johannesburg via OR Tambo International.

According to Hong Kong Customs and Excise department data‚ two people who had boarded  at OR Tambo were arrested in Hong Kong Airport in 2016, nine in 2018 and 11 last year.

Among those arrested last year included two SAA flight attendants.

Wotherspoon‚ who is in SA to raise awareness about the recent surge in air-trafficking via one of Africa’s busiest airports‚ said those arrested boarded in Johannesburg and smuggled quantities of cocaine ranging from about 500g to as much as 12kg.

It was not only Hong Kong which had registered arrests coming from OR Tambo International Airport.

Advocacy organisation South Africans Locked Up in Foreign Countries head Patricia Gerber said all the 100 male foreigners arrested at Mauritius’s Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam Airport since 2017 and incarcerated or remanded on the island‚ had brought drugs via OR Tambo airport.

Wotherspoon said all those who admitted guilt in Hong Kong reported that the drugs were given to them by members of Nigerian syndicates operating with a presence in Johannesburg and the Chinese financial hub.

He called for improved airport security‚ the investigation of drug syndicates‚ and for the SA government to negotiate a prisoner transfer agreement with Hong Kong authorities.

“The prisoners say that getting through OR Tambo was easy but Hong Kong airport‚ by contrast‚ has the most sophisticated detection systems in the world‚” Wotherspoon said.

“[Ethiopia’s] Addis Ababa Bole is the OR Tambo of the north‚ but where Addis lacks scanning technology‚ is understaffed and has no sniffer dogs‚ OR Tambo has no excuse for its poor security performance‚” Wotherspoon said.

SA’s international relations department said 790 South Africans were incarcerated abroad as of November 30, of which 71% were serving sentences for drug-related offences.

Of the 46 South Africans locked up in Hong Kong‚ 44 are for drug-related offences‚ and all of the 31 South Africans locked up in mainland China prisons are in jail for drug-related offences. — TimesLIVE