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Multi-million dollar crystal meth lab found hidden in remote South Africa farm; Mexican suspects arrested
Three Mexican suspects were arrested with two South Africans when elite police units raided a multi-million dollar crystal meth lab hidden in a remote farm north of Johannesburg, police said Tuesday.
The owner of the farm near Groblersdal, about 125 miles from Johannesburg, was among four men arrested on Friday, police said.
A third Mexican was picked up on Monday, the spokeswoman for the elite Hawks unit told AFP.
“The drugs were obviously intended for local and international sale,” Brigadier Thandi Mbambo told AFP, adding that the manufacturing facility was operating “at a large scale.”
Authorities also seized large quantities of chemicals used to manufacture illicit drugs, including crystal meth and acetone, valued at around two billion rands (more than $100 million), police said.
The Hawks and other specialized units raided the farm in the Limpopo province after a tip-off of suspicious activity there. Police photographs showed the operation was fairly sophisticated and included large machinery.
South African Police Service
So far this year, the Hawks have uncovered ten 10 clandestine drug laboratories and made 34 arrests, police said in a statement.
South Africa is a major consumer of meth and the market is growing in neighboring countries and elsewhere in the region, according to a 2021 report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.
“The consumer base for meth in South Africa appears to be significantly greater than initially imagined, marking it potentially among the largest meth consumer markets in the world,” the report says.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said in a 2023 report that South Africa is an appealing hub for illicit drugs destined for other countries.
“South Africa’s geography, porous borders and international trade links with Asia, Latin America, Western Europe and North America have made it an attractive drug transit country,” the report says
The country’s ports are believed to regularly receive containers of cocaine that are in transit and do not even land ashore, the drugs agency said.
The crystal meth bust in South Africa comes about two months after police in Spain said they had seized 1.8 tons of crystal meth that Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel was trying to sell in Europe, the country’s “biggest-ever seizure” of the narcotic.
The House Ethics Committee, which has been conducting an investigation into sexual misconduct and obstruction allegations against Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, scheduled a vote for Friday on whether to release its report, according to three sources with knowledge of the committee’s work.
Hours after President-elect Donald Trump said he planned to nominate Gaetz to be attorney general, Gaetz resigned his congressional seat, effective immediately.
“I do not intend to take the oath of office for the same office in the 119th Congress, to pursue the position of Attorney General in the Trump Administration,” Gaetz said in his resignation letter obtained by CBS News
House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters that there was about an eight-week period during which Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis could fill his seat by setting the date for a special election.
Now that Gaetz has resigned, it is unclear whether the panel will vote on releasing the report, since Gaetz is no longer in Congress.
There is precedent in Congress on the Senate side for an ethics committee report to become public after a member resigns from Congress, however. In 2011, this happened when Sen. John Ensign of Nevada resigned amid allegations that he tried to hide an extramarital affair.
But it’s not clear that that would apply to the House, leaving open the possibility that the report on Gaetz would not be released.
In June, the House Ethics Committee released a statement saying it was investigating a range of allegations against Gaetz, including sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, and bribery.
Multiple sources at the time told CBS News that four women had informed the House Ethics Committee that they had been paid to go to parties that included sex and drugs, and that Gaetz had also attended. The committee has Gaetz’s Venmo transactions that allegedly show payments for the women.
Gaetz has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and has called the committee’s investigation a “frivolous” smear campaign.
Some of the allegations of sexual misconduct under review by the committee were also the subject of a previous Department of Justice probe into Gaetz. Federal investigators sought to determine if Gaetz violated sex trafficking and obstruction of justice laws, but no charges were filed.
The House Ethics Committee resumed its investigation into Gaetz in 2023, following the Justice Department’s decision not to pursue charges against him.
Gaetz has long blamed then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, also a Republican, for the probe. And Gaetz later led the movement to sack McCarthy as speaker.
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