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"contents": "<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Two containers of chicken meat – one destined for South Africa, the other for the Netherlands – were intercepted at Brazil’s Port of Paranaguá last week.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The bust highlights how traffickers keep trying to use well-tried methods and routes to push the drug around the world, including to this country.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Daily Maverick has reported extensively on how </span><a href=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-02-14-blood-ties-south-africa-caught-in-a-web-of-murderous-drug-smuggling-brazilian-gangs/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">South Africa and Brazil have a deep background</span></a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in the policing of cocaine smuggling between the two countries.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Last week in a statement, Brazil’s Federal Revenue Service said 86kg of cocaine had been intercepted at the Port of Paranaguá on 10 June.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Two containers of chicken meat, in which the drug consignments were hidden, had been flagged for inspection.</span>\r\n<h4><b>Hidden in the fridge engine</b></h4>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A scanner picked up the presence of packages hidden in the refrigeration engine sections of the containers, which could be accessed externally.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">About 51kg of the 86kg of cocaine were destined for South Africa and the rest for the Netherlands.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">According to Brazil’s revenue service, seven cocaine interceptions have been made at Paranaguá so far this year.</span>\r\n\r\n<b>Read more in Daily Maverick:</b><a href=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-05-22-the-durban-link-to-brazils-deadly-cocaine-battles/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Cocaine’s deadly destinations – the Durban link to the bodies piling up in Brazil’s drug battles</span></a>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Daily Maverick has reported on previous shipments of cocaine, due to be trafficked to and through South Africa, being discovered in the port city where narco traffickers are involved in deadly turf wars.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The latest bust on 10 June was also not the first to be travelling incognito with chicken meat.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Towards the end of 2023, cocaine worth R151-million, smuggled from Brazil, was discovered </span><a href=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-12-05-r151-million-cocaine-disguised-as-meat-seized-in-durban-in-latest-sa-brazil-bust/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">hidden in meat boxes</span></a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in a cold storage facility at Durban harbour. About two months before that, 16kg of the drug was intercepted at the Paranaguá port.</span>\r\n\r\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2239742\" src=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Ten-kilograms-of-a-subrance-believed-to-be-cocaine-was-discovered-on-a-ship-in-Brazil-in-April-2024.-The-consignment-was-destined-for-South-Africa.-Photo-Brazil-Federal-Police.jpeg\" alt=\"cocaine chicken\" width=\"768\" height=\"345\" /> <em>Ten kilograms of a substance, believed to be cocaine, was discovered on a ship in Brazil in April 2024. The consignment was destined for South Africa. (Photo: Brazil Federal Police)</em></p>\r\n<h4><b>Cape Town connection</b></h4>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the time, Brazil’s Federal Revenue Service said “the drug was [concealed] in the refrigerated engine of a container loaded with frozen chicken that was destined for South Africa”.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In April 2023, cocaine worth R84-million was found in a container in the Airport Industria area near Cape Town International Airport. There, too, the discovery was made after suspicions were raised about a container filled with boxes of poultry.</span>\r\n\r\n<b>Read more in Daily Maverick:</b><a href=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-07-02-coke-smugglers-playing-chicken-with-south-africas-port-authorities/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Coke smugglers playing chicken with South Africa’s port authorities</span></a>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Before that, in February 2023, a container packed with 27 tonnes of chicken gizzards and due to be shipped from Brazil to Durban was found to contain cocaine concealed in its fridge engine.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Evidence collected by Daily Maverick indicates traffickers favour Durban as the South African destination through which to channel their drugs. In Brazil, the ports of Santos and Paranaguá are among those preferred.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In April, a dock worker was arrested at Santos after Brazilian authorities found 10kg of a substance that appeared to be cocaine hidden under his clothes and in a backpack. The Brazilian police said the drug was destined for South Africa.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Meanwhile, an international crackdown on drug cartels, carried out over three years and involving police forces in several countries, including Brazil, was wrapped up last week.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A total of 40 arrests were made during the operation – four of them in Spain as recently as 12 June.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Europol, the European Union’s (EU) law enforcement agency, announced last week that a “criminal network, which was orchestrating multi-tonne cocaine trafficking from Colombia, Brazil and Ecuador to the EU”, had been the target.</span>\r\n\r\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dR77qbBRjU\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Europol statement said: “Brazilian authorities targeted the Brazilian criminal organisation that had been transporting cocaine inland from source countries to seaports in Brazil and other logistical hubs.”</span>\r\n<h4><b>Shipping through logistical hubs</b></h4>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The statement added that sea routes were used to traffic the drugs.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“The suspects arranged the trafficking into the EU through maritime shipments going via logistical hubs in west Africa and the Canary Islands,” it said.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“Once the drugs had reached the EU, the suspects used handling centres in Belgium, Croatia, Germany, Italy and Spain to further distribute cocaine across Europe.”</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The alleged leaders of the trafficking organisation had once been based in Dubai and Turkey.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Europol did not reveal the identities of suspects or detained individuals.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The United Arab Emirates city of Dubai has a reputation for attracting criminal suspects.</span>\r\n\r\n<b>Read more in Daily Maverick:</b><a href=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-01-22-busted-a-global-super-cartel-encrypted-message-crackdown-and-cocaine-trails-to-durban/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Busted – a global ‘super cartel’, encrypted message crackdown and cocaine trails to Durban</span></a>\r\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the end of 2022, Europol carried out several raids and arrests there in a trafficking crackdown.</span></h4>\r\n<h4><b>Turkey connection</b></h4>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As for Turkey, a suspect previously detained there appeared to have ties to South Africa.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2023, Daily Maverick reported on Joseph Hakan Ayik, a Turkish citizen who was arrested along with more than 30 others as part of a Turkish police project codenamed Operation Cage.</span>\r\n\r\n<b>Read more in Daily Maverick:</b><a href=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-11-13-the-drug-trafficker-fbi-hacked-phones-and-the-sa-link/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> ‘Most-wanted drug trafficker’ accused of peddling FBI hacked phones linked to South Africa, arrested in Turkey</span></a>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the time, the </span><a href=\"https://www.icisleri.gov.tr/silahli-organize-suc-orgutu-comanchero-cokertildi\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Turkish interior ministry</span></a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> said gang leaders from Turkey and other states had been targeted.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These suspects were trying “to deliver the drugs they procured from South America to Australia, the Netherlands and Hong Kong via South Korea and South Africa, and commit crimes on a global scale”.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ayik also allegedly headed up an outlaw motorcycle gang </span><a href=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-12-10-australian-cocaine-trafficking-accused-has-sa-global-crime-links/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">linked to Australia</span></a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which also has strong drug links to South Africa. </span><b>DM</b>\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>This story first appeared in our weekly </i>Daily Maverick 168<i> newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.</i></span></p>\r\n<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2242074\" src=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/DM-22062024001jhbis.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1247\" height=\"1640\" />",
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"description": "<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Two containers of chicken meat – one destined for South Africa, the other for the Netherlands – were intercepted at Brazil’s Port of Paranaguá last week.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The bust highlights how traffickers keep trying to use well-tried methods and routes to push the drug around the world, including to this country.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Daily Maverick has reported extensively on how </span><a href=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-02-14-blood-ties-south-africa-caught-in-a-web-of-murderous-drug-smuggling-brazilian-gangs/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">South Africa and Brazil have a deep background</span></a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in the policing of cocaine smuggling between the two countries.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Last week in a statement, Brazil’s Federal Revenue Service said 86kg of cocaine had been intercepted at the Port of Paranaguá on 10 June.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Two containers of chicken meat, in which the drug consignments were hidden, had been flagged for inspection.</span>\r\n<h4><b>Hidden in the fridge engine</b></h4>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A scanner picked up the presence of packages hidden in the refrigeration engine sections of the containers, which could be accessed externally.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">About 51kg of the 86kg of cocaine were destined for South Africa and the rest for the Netherlands.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">According to Brazil’s revenue service, seven cocaine interceptions have been made at Paranaguá so far this year.</span>\r\n\r\n<b>Read more in Daily Maverick:</b><a href=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-05-22-the-durban-link-to-brazils-deadly-cocaine-battles/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Cocaine’s deadly destinations – the Durban link to the bodies piling up in Brazil’s drug battles</span></a>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Daily Maverick has reported on previous shipments of cocaine, due to be trafficked to and through South Africa, being discovered in the port city where narco traffickers are involved in deadly turf wars.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The latest bust on 10 June was also not the first to be travelling incognito with chicken meat.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Towards the end of 2023, cocaine worth R151-million, smuggled from Brazil, was discovered </span><a href=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-12-05-r151-million-cocaine-disguised-as-meat-seized-in-durban-in-latest-sa-brazil-bust/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">hidden in meat boxes</span></a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in a cold storage facility at Durban harbour. About two months before that, 16kg of the drug was intercepted at the Paranaguá port.</span>\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_2239742\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"768\"]<img class=\"size-full wp-image-2239742\" src=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Ten-kilograms-of-a-subrance-believed-to-be-cocaine-was-discovered-on-a-ship-in-Brazil-in-April-2024.-The-consignment-was-destined-for-South-Africa.-Photo-Brazil-Federal-Police.jpeg\" alt=\"cocaine chicken\" width=\"768\" height=\"345\" /> <em>Ten kilograms of a substance, believed to be cocaine, was discovered on a ship in Brazil in April 2024. The consignment was destined for South Africa. (Photo: Brazil Federal Police)</em>[/caption]\r\n<h4><b>Cape Town connection</b></h4>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the time, Brazil’s Federal Revenue Service said “the drug was [concealed] in the refrigerated engine of a container loaded with frozen chicken that was destined for South Africa”.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In April 2023, cocaine worth R84-million was found in a container in the Airport Industria area near Cape Town International Airport. There, too, the discovery was made after suspicions were raised about a container filled with boxes of poultry.</span>\r\n\r\n<b>Read more in Daily Maverick:</b><a href=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-07-02-coke-smugglers-playing-chicken-with-south-africas-port-authorities/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Coke smugglers playing chicken with South Africa’s port authorities</span></a>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Before that, in February 2023, a container packed with 27 tonnes of chicken gizzards and due to be shipped from Brazil to Durban was found to contain cocaine concealed in its fridge engine.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Evidence collected by Daily Maverick indicates traffickers favour Durban as the South African destination through which to channel their drugs. In Brazil, the ports of Santos and Paranaguá are among those preferred.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In April, a dock worker was arrested at Santos after Brazilian authorities found 10kg of a substance that appeared to be cocaine hidden under his clothes and in a backpack. The Brazilian police said the drug was destined for South Africa.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Meanwhile, an international crackdown on drug cartels, carried out over three years and involving police forces in several countries, including Brazil, was wrapped up last week.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A total of 40 arrests were made during the operation – four of them in Spain as recently as 12 June.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Europol, the European Union’s (EU) law enforcement agency, announced last week that a “criminal network, which was orchestrating multi-tonne cocaine trafficking from Colombia, Brazil and Ecuador to the EU”, had been the target.</span>\r\n\r\nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dR77qbBRjU\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Europol statement said: “Brazilian authorities targeted the Brazilian criminal organisation that had been transporting cocaine inland from source countries to seaports in Brazil and other logistical hubs.”</span>\r\n<h4><b>Shipping through logistical hubs</b></h4>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The statement added that sea routes were used to traffic the drugs.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“The suspects arranged the trafficking into the EU through maritime shipments going via logistical hubs in west Africa and the Canary Islands,” it said.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">“Once the drugs had reached the EU, the suspects used handling centres in Belgium, Croatia, Germany, Italy and Spain to further distribute cocaine across Europe.”</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The alleged leaders of the trafficking organisation had once been based in Dubai and Turkey.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Europol did not reveal the identities of suspects or detained individuals.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The United Arab Emirates city of Dubai has a reputation for attracting criminal suspects.</span>\r\n\r\n<b>Read more in Daily Maverick:</b><a href=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-01-22-busted-a-global-super-cartel-encrypted-message-crackdown-and-cocaine-trails-to-durban/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Busted – a global ‘super cartel’, encrypted message crackdown and cocaine trails to Durban</span></a>\r\n<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the end of 2022, Europol carried out several raids and arrests there in a trafficking crackdown.</span></h4>\r\n<h4><b>Turkey connection</b></h4>\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As for Turkey, a suspect previously detained there appeared to have ties to South Africa.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2023, Daily Maverick reported on Joseph Hakan Ayik, a Turkish citizen who was arrested along with more than 30 others as part of a Turkish police project codenamed Operation Cage.</span>\r\n\r\n<b>Read more in Daily Maverick:</b><a href=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-11-13-the-drug-trafficker-fbi-hacked-phones-and-the-sa-link/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> ‘Most-wanted drug trafficker’ accused of peddling FBI hacked phones linked to South Africa, arrested in Turkey</span></a>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">At the time, the </span><a href=\"https://www.icisleri.gov.tr/silahli-organize-suc-orgutu-comanchero-cokertildi\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Turkish interior ministry</span></a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> said gang leaders from Turkey and other states had been targeted.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These suspects were trying “to deliver the drugs they procured from South America to Australia, the Netherlands and Hong Kong via South Korea and South Africa, and commit crimes on a global scale”.</span>\r\n\r\n<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ayik also allegedly headed up an outlaw motorcycle gang </span><a href=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2023-12-10-australian-cocaine-trafficking-accused-has-sa-global-crime-links/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">linked to Australia</span></a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which also has strong drug links to South Africa. </span><b>DM</b>\r\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><i>This story first appeared in our weekly </i>Daily Maverick 168<i> newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.</i></span></p>\r\n<img class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2242074\" src=\"https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/DM-22062024001jhbis.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1247\" height=\"1640\" />",
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"summary": "In October 2023, in one of several similar interceptions, Brazilian authorities found a stash of cocaine concealed in a consignment of chicken, headed for South Africa on a ship. Now it has happened again.",
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"search_title": "Roasted again — more cocaine hidden with chicken, destined for SA, intercepted in Brazil",
"search_description": "<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Two containers of chicken meat – one destined for South Africa, the other for the Netherlands – were intercepted at Brazil’s Port of Paranaguá last week.</span>\r\n\r\n<spa",
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"social_description": "<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Two containers of chicken meat – one destined for South Africa, the other for the Netherlands – were intercepted at Brazil’s Port of Paranaguá last week.</span>\r\n\r\n<spa",
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Ten kilograms of a substance, believed to be cocaine, was discovered on a ship in Brazil in April 2024. The consignment was destined for South Africa. (Photo: Brazil Federal Police)