PREOTRIA - Hawks have cracked a drug syndicate after pouncing on another drug lab, this time in Erasmia, west of Pretoria.
The lab is said to have allegedly been producing approximately 800 000 mandrax tablets a day.
Added to this, police believe this is also the discovery of a new establishment that purports to be manufacturing crystal meth.
READ | R800,000 cocaine haul lands man in custody at OR Tambo
According to Deputy National Commissioner for Policing Tebello Mosikili, two foreign nationals were arrested during the raid on the clandestine mandrax lab and drugs were seized.
“This is a major blow to a large-scale criminal syndicate and to the illicit drug supply chain in South Africa. Eight hundred thousand tablets a day is not just a small number.
“By dismantling this facility, we are disrupting the production capacity of a network capable of flooding our communities with hundreds of thousands of mandrax tablets every single day,” Mosikili said.
According to Mosikili, the operation was intelligence-led, with crime intelligence having monitored activities and movements at this small holding for some time.
She said authorities are now working on establishing the source of the drugs.