WINDHOEK – An average of 1 100 drug cases are investigated every year by the Namibian police following tip-offs from the public, national police spokesperson, Deputy Commissioner Edwin Kanguatjivi said.
Results from the police-initiated operations show that foreigners were involved in 10 percent of the drug busts, Kanguatjivi told New Era upon enquiry this week.
“Cannabis is the beginner’s drug and therefore is the most widely used,” Kanguatjivi said.
In July this year, Simon Nangaku, was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment after being arrested in 2010 with more than 90 kg of cannabis (dagga) in his car.
Magistrate Johannes Shuuveni in June convicted Nangaku and his co-accused, Nomsa Shumane, 30, of dealing in illegal drugs.
Shumane died while being transported to hospital from the Wanaheda Police Station.
The two were caught red-handed with three bags containing cannabis that weighed 90.96 kg, and with a street value of N$270 288, at a police roadblock outside Windhoek on 18 July, 2010.
During the trial in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court in Katutura, the two pleaded not guilty, each claiming that the drugs belonged to the other.
The court established that the drugs were found in a car registered in Nangaku’s name, while Shumane was a passenger in the car.
In February this year the head of the Drug Law Enforcement Unit, Chief Inspector Freddy Basson, was granted bail of N$40 000 in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court. Basson is charged with theft of exhibits from the unit’s safe and for allegedly stealing cocaine.
In July a Congolese man was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment in the Windhoek Magistrate’s Court on charges of possession of cocaine.