Illustrative Image: Cocaine was discovered hidden in a container of chicken at Brazil’s Paranaguar port on 17 June 2025. Authorities there say it was destined for Durban. (Photos: Brazil Federal Revenue Service) 
A shipping container carrying chicken was intercepted and searched at the Port of Paranagua in Brazil last month. In it, a 13.5kg consignment of cocaine was discovered – and it was destined for Durban, according to Federal Revenue Service officials in Brazil.
About a week later, in June, 70kg of cocaine was intercepted at Paranagua port. “The criminal scheme involved smuggling the drug into a container bound for South Africa,” Brazil’s Federal Police said at the time.
These intercepted consignments were relatively small and raise questions about whether they may have been decoys to distract from larger batches of drugs.
Brazil-SA cocaine conduit
Daily Maverick has reported extensively on cocaine smuggled from Brazil to South Africa and how traffickers seem to prefer the Port of Durban when pushing drugs into this country.
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/ED_492891.jpg "KZN Police Commissioner Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi. (Photo: Gallo Images / Darren Stewart)")
Earlier this month, on 6 July 2025, KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi made astounding allegations relating to this narco matrix.
He alleged that a drug cartel headquartered in Gauteng was controlling a high-level criminal syndicate that extended into the South African Police Service (SAPS), the Police Ministry, Parliament, official prison structures, the judiciary and other law enforcement authorities.
Read more: Mkhwanazi’s warning — drug cartel, criminal syndicate infest SA law enforcement
Mkhwanazi alleged that drugs were brought in from South America and often entered the country via the Port of Durban.
From there, he said the drugs were moved to Gauteng for processing and distribution locally and internationally.
Mkhwanazi’s assertions have not been tested in court, and it seems they are yet to be fully investigated.
On Sunday, 13 July 2025, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced the formation of a judicial commission of inquiry to look into his accusations.
#sapsHQ Police officers at the Durban Harbour continue to clamp down on the trafficking of drugs into South Africa. In the latest drug bust, these members seized cocaine worth R151 million. #DrugsOffTheStreets MLhttps://t.co/kYJ4cIInOr pic.twitter.com/ISK4xjY3NJ
— SA Police Service 🇿🇦 (@SAPoliceService) December 5, 2023
Mkhwanazi’s allegations have led to several further developments.
These include Police Minister Senzo Mchunu and Deputy National Commissioner of Crime Detection Shadrack Sibiya being placed on leave.
Mkhwanazi accused the pair of effectively working together to undermine investigations into political killings, to protect suspects – charges they have denied.
Read more: From South Africa to Sinaloa: Jackie Selebi and the ‘parallel’ US drug trial of Mexico’s ex-cop boss
The scandal now fits into a broader arena of smear campaign and cover-up claims.
Elements of this echo the situation that surrounded the late Jackie Selebi, who was South Africa’s police chief from 2000 to 2008 and who was found guilty of corruption in 2010, in a case linked to drugs – cocaine – and the taking of bribes.
Selebi claimed that detractors had set him up in a move to discredit him.
Claims and counterclaims now also dominate the latest accusations of police corruption.
What cannot be refuted, though, are crimes linked to what Mkhwanazi has alleged, including drug trafficking.
Cop suspicions
Daily Maverick has reported that a two-decades-old cocaine-smuggling channel is in operation between the Port of Durban and Brazil’s Port of Santos.
The Hawks have previously indicated to Daily Maverick that they are aware of the Durban-Santos route and that some cops were suspected of being complicit with the criminals using this channel.
A R200-million cocaine interception that happened in Gauteng four years ago points to that.
Police officers were among those arrested in this incident; however, the case against them was withdrawn.
The SAPS said that the intercepted drug consignment was from Brazil and had ended up in Durban, from where it was transported to Gauteng.
This is roughly in keeping with Mkhwanazi’s recent allegations that drugs sourced from South America were entering Durban, from where consignments were smuggled to Gauteng.
The saga surrounding the cocaine smuggling, which has exposed divisions in South Africa’s critical Crime Intelligence unit, does not appear to have concluded yet.
While traffickers may use both Brazil’s Port of Santos – which they have frequently used – and the Port of Paranagua, heightened police focus on the Port of Santos may see traffickers divert operations to Paranagua.
This is where the recent interceptions linked to South Africa fit in.
While these crackdowns may not necessarily involve crooked South African cops, they suggest that the popular cocaine trafficking route between Brazil and this country is still active.
This means that a chain of corrupt figures – involving, among others, port workers and those receiving, processing and distributing drugs – is probably in place in South Africa.
Concealed among frozen chicken consignment
Brazil’s Federal Revenue Service said that on 17 June 2025, the 13.5kg cocaine consignment was intercepted at the Paranagua port container terminal.
It was found hidden in a piece of equipment linked to a frozen chicken container.
The Federal Revenue Service referred to the “Port of Zadur” in Durban as the cocaine’s destination – “Zadur” is Durban’s port code. (There have been previous interceptions involving Brazil, South Africa and cocaine concealed in frozen chicken.)
According to the revenue service statement, the method used to hide the cocaine was the “rip on/rip off” method – when a shipment is tampered with and “illegal goods are introduced into a container without the exporter’s knowledge”.
Read more: Roasted again — more cocaine hidden with chicken, destined for SA, intercepted in Brazil
This is a method previously used when cocaine from Brazil, via the Port of Santos, was trafficked to Durban – smuggling that raised suspicions of police involvement.
In the other recent crackdown in Brazil involving South Africa, about a week after the cocaine was discovered in the chicken container, police officers arrested two people on 25 June. One was a truck driver.
The arrests followed the discovery of a 70kg cocaine consignment at the Paranagua container terminal. This was also destined for South Africa.
“The operation prevented the illicit cargo from being shipped overseas,” Brazilian authorities said.
‘Fuminho,’ Serbia and the ‘supercartel’
These recent interceptions, and many earlier crackdowns, indicate how cartels operate via South Africa.
If what Mkhwanazi recently alleged is true — that a drug cartel with ties to South America is headquartered in Gauteng – it hints at other dangers.
Cartels carry out other crimes, including murders, to maintain control of their drug routes.
Read more: Blood ties: South Africa caught in a web of murderous, drug-smuggling Brazilian gangs
Daily Maverick has previously reported that one of Brazil’s – and the world’s – most powerful criminal gangs, the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC), or First Capital Command, was among the organised crime syndicates using the Port of Santos for drug smuggling.
Accused PCC boss Gilberto Aparecido dos Santos, also known as Fuminho, has been in South Africa.
Some police sources suspected that Dos Santos and the PCC operated here.
Serbian traffickers are suspected of having partnered with Brazilian crooks. Several people from Serbia have been murdered in South Africa, especially in Gauteng, in killings with suspected drug trade links. (For example, George Mihaljevic was murdered in Bedfordview, Gauteng, in 2018 and seemed to know figures tainted by suspicions linked to cocaine.)
There was also evidence suggesting a “supercartel” headquartered in Dubai was operating via South Africa.
Daily Maverick has previously revealed that Edin “Tito” Gacanin, allegedly linked to the “supercartel” that consists of international gangs that have joined forces, was involved in a cocaine consignment involving Durban.
Gacanin, of Bosnia and Herzegovina, has a Netherlands passport. The United States has accused him of being one of the world’s most prolific narcotraffickers.
Other incidents linked to the cocaine trade hint at international criminals with links to local operators, crooked police officers possibly included.
Interceptions and burglary
These may tie in with the R200-million cocaine interception of four years ago in Gauteng, which led to the arrests of police officers in a case subsequently withdrawn. (The case, however, may develop further if charges are reinstated.)
That incident happened on 9 July 2021, coincidentally when riots broke out after former president Jacob Zuma was briefly jailed.
There were other curious drug incidents that year.
Weeks later, on 30 July 2021, half a billion rands worth of cocaine, in brick form and in a container ostensibly holding truck parts, was discovered at the Durban harbour.
This had suspected links to the 9 July cocaine interception.
#sapsKZN #SAPS in KwaZulu-Natal have recovered pure cocaine worth an estimated value of over R80 million which were concealed inside a container at the Durban Harbour. #DrugsOffTheStreets MEhttps://t.co/c4bPcyFTUS pic.twitter.com/8g4c75LKgo
— SA Police Service 🇿🇦 (@SAPoliceService) December 2, 2024
Months later, over a weekend in November 2021, the Hawks offices in Port Shepstone, KwaZulu-Natal, were burgled. Cocaine valued at R200-million was stolen.
A Hawks statement said: “The suspects gained entry into the building by forcing open the windows. One of the safes in the office, which were used to store exhibits, was tampered with.”
It was widely suspected that police officers had been involved in this incident.
As this journalist’s book, Clash of the Cartels: Unmasking the global drug kingpins stalking South Africa, explained: “Further suspicions were along the lines that the theft was an inside job, and cops had been bribed by suspects linked to powerful international cartels from Brazil, Serbia or both, to ensure the cocaine was retrieved.
“If all this were true, it meant that police officers were involved in smuggling R200-million in cocaine from Brazil into SA, fellow police officers had stopped them in their tracks, and corrupt cops then retaliated by stealing the cocaine back from their clean colleagues.
“A cocaine-laden cycle of collusion.” DM