From Afghanistan to South America, Vietnam and Europe, South Africa has strong trade partners.
Annual commerce worth hundreds of millions of rands could boost the country's reserves ... if only it did not involve illicit flows of unrefined mineral ores, Viagra, drugs and other contraband.
South Africa's geographic position and connections to the rest of the globe are turning it into one of the world's leading warehouses for underworld smugglers - underscored by last month's seizure of heroin worth R290-million on a farm in the Overberg.The heroin probably originated in Afghanistan, and it would have ended up in Europe had the plot to ship it with a consignment of wine gone undetected.
Professor Mark Shaw, director of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime, said two international drug economies were linked to South Africa: heroin from Asia and cocaine from Latin America.
"There has been an increase in the production of heroin in Afghanistan and an increase in the production of cocaine in the Andean region," said Shaw.
Market for heroin
"You have two drug economies on the west and the east coasts. Some of the drugs are for local use but the rest is for transhipment to bigger markets in Europe and Asia. South Africa's position between cocaine production areas and Asia makes us a transit point. We are a market for heroin but we are also a transit point."
Shaw said heroin was transported from Afghanistan through Pakistan then by sea to Mozambique. It reached South Africa by road through the Maputo-Johannesburg corridor and sometimes through the ports of Cape Town and Durban.
Cocaine, produced in South America, reached Johannesburg by air, or arrived in Luanda before being transferred to Namibia and South Africa by road.
The Overberg bust was a "classic case", said Shaw. "Something comes down from the eastern route, gets trucked by road to a farm, is repackaged and was going to be shipped to Europe. Whether they have a contact in Pakistan or Mozambique I am not sure. You need, often, to think of the flows as transnational but the control over the flows at various points as localised."
Methamphetamine, known in South Africa as tik, is produced locally using chemicals from Asia and India. And stolen cars are often smuggled out to Mozambique.
Shaw said money from illicit trade was laundered locally in a number of ways, including through the taxi industry and small shops.Ciara Aucoin, of the Institute for Security Studies, has tracked poaching and smuggling of endangered species in 10 countries in Southern Africa. She said rhino horn dominated the underworld markets followed by ivory and abalone, which has been linked to the tik trade in the Western Cape. The most recent estimate for the price of rhino horn is $65,000 (about R877,000) a kilogram.
"Rhino seem to be dominating in and around Kruger National Park as well as Namibia," said Aucoin. "We are finding that Mozambique is a huge hub for smuggling and the last port before the East - China and Vietnam. Ivory has historically been destined for Western markets but there has been a shift and more is now going to the East. Pangolin is also destined for the Asian markets."South Africa is also bleeding revenue in mineral ores, including gold, platinum and diamonds, which are smuggled to Dubai, India and the Middle East. Charles Goredema, director of Informed Solutions to Economic Crime in Africa, said the minerals were then refined and sold.
"The money is not repatriated back to South Africa," he said. "Some of the countries host refineries or act as transit countries."
Two years ago, a report commissioned by the UN found that Africa lost $50-billion a year through illicit financial outflows. Most of the money ends up in Western countries.
From fakes to drugs
According to SA Revenue Service, customs officers at OR Tambo International Airport in June seized:
● R4.2-million worth of counterfeit watches, footwear and tracksuits from three passengers travelling from Hong Kong via Nairobi;
● R235,914 worth of cocaine bullets in the stomachs of two passengers travelling from Sao Paolo;
● R863,000 worth of abandoned cocaine; and
● R11-million worth of rhino horn...