The arrest of an alleged Nigerian drug supplier in the Cape Town suburb of Table View has exposed the supply chain of crystal meth from Nigerian organised crime to the notorious Numbers Gang in Mitchell’s Plain.
On April 26 Table View police received a call from a local hotel at 11am.
The hotel staff informed the police that a “suspicious person” had booked into one of the hotel rooms.
According to Hawks spokesperson Zinzi Hani, when the police arrived they raided the room and found no-one there. Instead, they discovered 13 containers filled with 1kg of tik (crystal meth) each collectively valued at over R3.2m.
“Through intelligence, the man was then identified and later arrested on Friday, April 28 2023,” said Hani.
Darlington Ufondu, a 33-year-old Nigerian national, was pulled over at a police roadblock.
He was positively identified as the man who had booked into the hotel room where the tik was found.
Ufondu was granted R150,000 bail at the Cape Town magistrate’s court on May 9. His next court appearance is on November 16.
Mr Ufondu finds it very offensive that you are insinuating that he is a drug dealer.
— Lawyer Andre Johnston
During his bail application, Ufondu gave his address as 6A Kennington Close, Parklands.
This is the same address where Collins Otughwor, an alleged leader of the notorious Black Axe Nigerian organised crime group, lived until his arrest in an operation by the Hawks and the US Secret Service in Cape Town in October 2021.
Otughwor has been in custody since his arrest and is facing extradition to the US along with fellow alleged Black Axe members Perry Osagiede, Enorense Izevbigie, Franklyn Edosa Osagiede, Osariemen Eric Clement, Musa Mudashiru and Prince Ibeabuchi Mark. Their co-accused Toritseju Gabriel Otubu was granted R210,000 bail.
Ufondu, through his lawyer Andre Johnston, told TimesLIVE Investigations that he moved into the house early in 2023, which he was renting. He said he did not know Otughwor.
Documents seen by TimesLIVE Investigations show that in 2018 Ufondu made a R41,000 internet payment from his Nedbank account to the account of an alleged Black Axe member who is being investigated as part of a massive fraud network.
Ufondu also allegedly received cash payments into his account of up to R40,000 on a regular basis.
When Johnston was asked what work his client did for a living, he said he did not know.
“Mr Ufondu finds it very offensive that you are insinuating that he is a drug dealer,” he said.
Ufondu also vehemently denied being a member of the Black Axe.
TimesLIVE Investigations has established that since 2012, Ufondu has booked rooms in the hotel under the name D Okafor.
He lived in the hotel up until 2016, and then moved to Parklands and would make bookings at the hotel for other people to live in.
According to police information, seen by TimesLIVE Investigations, Ufondu allegedly used the hotel as a place from which to sell drugs to convicted drug dealer Fadwaan Murphy.
The report characterised Murphy and Ufondu’s use of the hotel as “a tik (crystal meth) packing facility”. The hotel was allegedly an exchange point for money and drugs between drug suppliers and drug dealers.
Murphy was convicted on 197 counts on July 12, with charges of running a drug dealing syndicate that supplied crystal meth to users in Mitchell’s Plain in territory controlled by the 26’s affiliated street gang The Young Dixie Boys.
Murphy is alleged to be the leader of the Young Dixie Boys in Mitchell’s Plain and is allegedly trusted to deal drugs on behalf of the 28s in a rare cross-pollination between the warring number gangs.
The hotel, which overlooks the beachfront in Blouberg on the Cape Town Atlantic seaboard, has been the location of a previous drug raid in May 2020, when the police’s dog unit raided a hotel room in the same hotel and found R3m in cash and R350,000 worth of drugs. However, police sources explained that the case was withdrawn by the prosecution after it became apparent that a large portion of the confiscated money found on the premises was not booked into the police’s evidence room and was now missing.
The money, according to police information, was allegedly meant for Murphy.
According to those investigating the Nigerian Black Axe before the arrests of their members in October 2021, the hotel was under surveillance when a large group of Black Axe members converged on the hotel one Sunday afternoon. The investigators cannot be named because they don’t have permission to speak to the media.
The investigators observed the alleged Black Axe members waiting around the hotel in their cars.
The occupants of each vehicle, all alleged Black Axe members, would receive a phone call before leaving their vehicle with a black carry-bag laden with heavy contents and then enter the hotel.
They would exit the hotel later with bags that appeared to be empty and then leave in their vehicle before the next person was called up to the hotel.
At the time, investigators believed that the bags were filled with cash derived from fraud as many of the people under surveillance would later be arrested for defrauding victims in America of millions of US dollars.
Unfondu is officially an asylum seeker in South Africa.
However, in 2012 he pleaded guilty to a drug possession charge and was again arrested for possession of tik in December 2015. This charge, however, was withdrawn in 2019.
Johnston confirmed both cases but said that the 2012 possession case was “for personal use” even though the high court ruling decriminalising personal drug use was only made in 2015.
Despite being an asylum seeker, Ufondu has had no problems running business operations in his home country where he runs a restaurant and shopping centre called Century City.
Johnston said he did not have information about Ufondu’s immigration status in South Africa.
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