OR Tambo Cocaine Seizure and Your Customs Clients

1 Sept

Written By Eszter Rapanos, Quality Assurance, Public Sector and Publication Manager, Chartered Institute for Business Accountants (CIBA)

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SARS Customs and Excise officials intercepted more than 333kg of cocaine at OR Tambo International Airport, off a flight arriving from Sao Paulo, Brazil. SARS puts the estimated street value at R167 million.

The operation ran at three points at once: aircraft baggage off-loading, passenger arrivals baggage screening, and cargo inspections. In the international arrivals hall, Customs officials found two pieces of luggage holding 75 bricks of cocaine, weighing 83.10kg. Separately, SARS narcotics detector dog Lagertha reacted to four boxes of unmanifested cargo off-loaded from the same flight. Those boxes held 250kg of cocaine. Both the baggage and the cargo consignments carried similar "Air" branding.

SAPS was brought in for forensic processing and criminal investigation in both cases.

SARS Commissioner Dr Johnstone Makhubu credited the result to intelligence-led work, data and risk analysis, and the vigilance of Customs officers. He said the seizure shows SARS is strengthening its ability to detect and disrupt sophisticated smuggling syndicates, and he thanked law enforcement and international partners for the cooperation.

Why this matters to your practice

The headline is the drugs but the lesson for you is the method on how SARS goes about identifying risk. They did not stumble on this. They profiled a flight, then hit three processing points simultaneously. That same engine, risk profiling, data analytics and detector dogs, is running on every consignment your trading clients move. As we covered in SARS Raid Exposes R9.1m Ethanol Transit Fraud in Gauteng, your client does not have to be the criminal to end up in the file. A warehouse rental, a transport leg, or a clearing instruction is enough to put a name inside a customs investigation.

The second detail worth flagging is the unmanifested cargo. Four boxes came off a commercial flight with no paperwork tying them to anyone. Manifests, declarations and acquittals are not admin. They are the record that proves your client was not part of it.

What to do this week

If you have clients in freight, clearing, warehousing or import and export:

Check that their customs registration and RLA profile details still match their tax records.
Ask who signs their declarations, and whether anyone else has access to their customs code.
Confirm that goods moving under customs control are being properly acquitted, and that the proof is filed.

Then bill for the review. This is advisory work, not favour work.

For more read the SARS media release.