Kabalagala, Bunga major hubs for illicit drugs - police
The spokesman of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, Mr Vicent Ssekate. FILE PHOTO
What you need to know:
Background. The two areas have a big population of foreigners, especially from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Kampala. Police have named Kabalagala and Bunga, two upscale suburbs in Kampala city, as major hubs for illicit hard drugs and fake mineral dealings in the country.
The spokesman of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, Mr Vicent Ssekate, said most dealers of narcotics and precious mineral scams operate in the two suburbs in Makindye Division.
“Every drug or gold case we have investigated was either executed in Kabalagala or Bunga. The dealings involve Ugandans and foreigners from West African countries. The networks are growing bigger. Officers from the directorates of crime intelligence and criminal investigations are looking at dismantling these criminal networks,” Mr Ssekate said yesterday.
Kabalagala and Bunga have a big population of foreigners, especially from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Eritrea.
In 2016, police seized 1.9 tonnes of narcotic drugs (14.6kgs of cocaine, 64.7kgs of heroin, 1,760kgs of cannabis and 150kgs of processed cannabis) at Entebbe International Airport. Some of the contrabands are smuggled through condoms, handcrafts, fruits and pellets that swallowed by people.
Last week, police arrested two people – a Rwandan national and Congolese – with drugs at Entebbe International Airport. Both are suspected to have got the drugs from Kabalagala and Bunga.
Mr Ssekate said they are investigating whether these networks dealing drugs are connected to those involved in trafficking people to the Middle East, Asia and Europe to get jobs.
“Our investigations show that many of the people, especially women, found with drugs concealed in their luggage at the airport, are couriers. Some women carry luggage not knowing the concealed contents. When they are arrested at airports, the masterminds disappear,” he said.
It is alleged that drug traffickers take advantage of unsuspected victims looking for jobs abroad to use them as couriers.
In the gold scams, Mr Ssekate said the networks from the two suburbs are now targeting the business community from the Middle East.
“They have contacts in the Middle East who lure business people look for precious minerals. They bring them to Uganda and take them to offices in Bunga or Kabalagala where they claim to connect them to gold dealers in Democratic Republic of Congo. The least amount lost in these cases is Shs200m,” he said.
