Ageing infrastructure aiding drug smuggling in prisons: Thobakgale – SABC News

National Commissioner of Correctional Services, Makgothi Thobakgale, has expressed concern that ageing infrastructure in prisons is used as a hiding place for drugs and other contraband.

He was addressing the media after a surprise raid at Durban’s Westville Correctional Centre during which authorities confiscated a huge stash of contraband, including drugs, knives, cellphones, money and televisions.

Correctional services officers pounced on inmates and staff during an unannounced night raid at Durban’s Westville Correctional Centre’s Medium A and B sections, where hardened criminals are incarcerated.

The team, led by the National Commissioner, together with emergency support teams, swooped on the facility and seized the contraband.
Among the dangerous items confiscated were knives which were found concealed in the facility.

The search followed the discovery of drugs hidden in plumbing pipes and other compromised areas of the facility in a two-day operation last week following intelligence information.

Correctional Services Commissioner Makgothi Thobakgale says, “Today we are doing a targeted search that is informed by information that we have been gathering for some time. We are targeting two centres, medium A and medium B. Last week, in two days we found a total of and confiscated a total of 2 714 slopes of dagga, seven compressed dagga parcels with one compressed dagga parcel the parcel is of the size of my hand you can generate more than 1500 slopes, slopes are small packages that you can sell so you can imagene the numbers from seven compressed parcels how many slopes you get out of that”.

Thobakgale says inmates and wardens found to be behind the smuggling of the contraband will face the full might of the law.

“We were also able to identify places where these amount of drugs would be stored for instance because our facilities are quite old, the inmates and our members actually target spaces where there will be vulnerability in terms of infrastructure where we need to maintain for instance if there are holes in the building or if there are pipes trough the plumbing system that are compromised that is where they stash these drugs so those we were able to attend to it so that’s why we are moving to the sections”.

Correctional Services conducts raids at a Durban-based prison