60mil madrax bust in S.A

[bottlekop]

10 May 2006 03:06
Johannesburg, South Africa
Police swoop on R60m-worth of Mandrax

Police confiscated Mandrax tablets -- worth about R60-
million on the street -- in a cargo depot at City Deep in
Johannesburg on Wednesday.
Senior Superintendent Mary Martins-Engelbrecht said the
crime intelligence unit, the organised crime unit, the
South African Revenue Service, customs, and the police dog
unit resulted in the confiscation of the Mandrax tablets
early on Wednesday morning.
"The team followed up on information regarding a shipment
from China via the Durban harbour to Johannesburg," said
Martins-Engelbrecht.
"The Mandrax tablets were found in a container that
contained wooden doors. Upon investigations the police dogs
reacted positively to drugs. They were found stashed inside
the doors."
Martins-Engelbrecht said the bust was a huge blow to the
Mandrax industry, adding that the cooperation between the
various departments played a huge role in the successful
confiscation of the drugs.
"Police expect to make arrests soon. We suspect it’s an
international drug syndicate that's involved," she said. --
Sapa

-Mail & Gaurdian (online)
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P.S - for all those not from south africa, this is a local news paper. also currency in article is RANDS. exchange rate roughly at 1$ to 6/7 rand (usualy).

[snapper]

SWIM loved this stuff when SWIM was a kid. Didn't know it was still around, though it is really easy to synth. Also didn't know it was smokable. Here's an interesting article on the Mandrax trade in South Africa. Who whoulda thunk that it was smoked with dagga (cannabis or lion's tail ?).

http://www.drugaware.co.za/mandrax.html

Snapper

Reputation Comments on this post:

informative info re:mandrax in S.A

[BlueMystic]

Ahh yes, Mandrax. SWIB wouldn't mind having a mandrax dream every once in a while.

[bottlekop]

thanks Snapper, link was interesting. I am always interested to read about S.A related things.
it is often smoked with cannabis(not lion's tail as far as i am aware) in S.A . and funny enough the most common smokking device is the "bottle-kop"(neck of a broken bottle used as a pipe with a paper filter. well now u've seen where i get my screen name from. they call it "White-Pipe" in the artical, but a more common name with the coloured(malay) and black people is bottlekop. swibk discovered cannabis through them and is used to that word). the pills are crushed and mixed with dagga as the link says, then smoked. the mandrax is also often just refed to as "pills". very general word I know. but much like the word "dope" it obviously has a few different interpretations in different parts of the world. but usualy in S.A if someone talks of "pills" in the context of smokking, they will be reffering to mandrax.