Namibian drug mule arrested in Brazil

Another young Namibian woman has been arrested in Brazil for drug trafficking.

Details about the incident are still sketchy but police spokesperson Deputy Commissioner Edwin Kanguatjivi yesterday confirmed to Namibian Sun that the woman was arrested on 24 May at the Sao Paulo-Guarulhos International Airport in Brazil.

Dedre Anzell Strauss, who is in her early 30s, was arrested at the airport for being in possession of cocaine.

Kanguatjivi could, however, not confirm the amount of cocaine that she was carrying with her.

He said that Strauss left Namibia on 17 May on a South African Airways flight and was on her way back from Brazil on 24 May.

It is alleged that she left the country with her boyfriend who hails from Brazil.

This arrest follows barely a month after a 33-year-old Namibian woman was arrested for smuggling cocaine into South Africa from Brazil.

In this incident Lena de Waal was arrested at the end of April at the O.R. Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg travelling from Sao Palo in Brazil.

The South African Hawks discovered 5kg of cocaine to the value of N$2 million, which was concealed and wrapped in foil hidden inside her luggage.

According to Kanguatjivi, De Waal is married to an Angolan.

Kanguatjivi yesterday issued a stern warning to young women not to fall victim to unscrupulous foreigners who recruit them as drug mules.

He pointed out that these incidents of Namibian women being used in these crimes are becoming more and more common.





“I want to warn these women not to fall prey to these sugar-coated stories. If you are arrested in a country like Brazil with drugs you will sit for a very long time,” he said.

In January it was also reported that 28kg of ecstasy and cocaine, estimated at more than R8 million, was intercepted at the O.R. Tambo International Airport.

A sniffer dog had reacted positively to a shipment that came from Sao Paulo via Johannesburg which was in transit to Windhoek.

Twelve containers of cream were confirmed to contain 15kg of cocaine, estimated to be worth N$4 315 500.

A few years ago seven Namibian women were arrested for the possession of drugs in Brazil and were held in prisons in Sao Paolo at that time.

The women were all between the ages of 20 and 40, and were arrested during the course of 2011.

The women were allegedly trying to take the drugs out of that country for destinations in southern Africa.

At that time police said Namibian women were being used as drug couriers (mules) after they were recruited by foreign drug dealers operating in Namibia and neighbouring South Africa.

According to an article about drug mules in prison in Brazil, the international airport at Sao Paulo is the main exit point for drug mules carrying cocaine.

Many of the women in prison for drug trafficking have never committed a crime before and if caught they face sentences up to 15 years in jail, with the right of two phone calls a year.

The article says that traffickers are skilled in identifying desperate and vulnerable women and promise them that nothing will go wrong, but many times before they even reach the airport an anonymous phone call is placed to the police by the same people who employed them to carry the drugs.



ELLANIE SMIT