THE WIFE of South Africa’s state security minister was arrested and charged yesterday with conspiring with a Nigerian man to smuggle cocaine into the country from Brazil using young white women as drug mules.
Sheryl Cwele (50), wife of state security minister Siyabinga Cwele, was allegedly involved in recruiting the women to travel to Brazil on the pretext of arranging short-term work, then returning with the illegal drug in their luggage.
Ms Cwele was arrested at her home in Port Shepstone on the KwaZulu-Natal south coast yesterday morning and brought before Pietermaritzburg high court, where she was charged. She has applied for bail but it has yet to be decided if she will be freed or remanded in custody.
Two others linked to the case, South African Tessa Beetge and Nigerian Frank Nabolis, have already been arrested. Another woman, Charmaine Moss, who was recruited to pick up drugs in Turkey, is allegedly the state’s main witness in the case.
Beetge was arrested in São Paulo, Brazil, by federal police in June 2008 as she attempted to leave the country. She was found to have 9.2kg of cocaine hidden in her luggage. She has since been convicted on drug-related charges and is serving an eight-year prison sentence in Brazil.
Mr Nabolis was arrested in December in Gauteng province after entering South Africa using a false name. Ms Cwele and Mr Nabolis were allegedly in contact with each other shortly after Beetge’s arrest, with the latter leaving the country shortly afterwards.
State counsel advocate Ian Cook told the presiding judge that Ms Cwele and Mr Nabolis would appear before the high court again on February 12th.
In an interview in Durban’s Mercury newspaper yesterday, Ms Cwele said she was innocent and she wanted to tell her side of the story, but was waiting for permission from her lawyer to do so.
“The only person who will solve the problem is God,” the paper quotes her as saying.
Since rumours of Ms Cwele’s alleged involvement in drug smuggling first arose in 2008 following the arrest of Beetge, her husband has denied any knowledge of his wife’s alleged links with the woman or Mr Nabolis.
The opposition Democratic Alliance has called on Mr Cwele to prove he has no involvement in the matter or to tender his resignation.
A party official said: “This is disturbing news and raises a number of serious questions regarding the minister. We believe that he must demonstrate to the South African public that he is in no way compromised by this matter; if he fails to do so, he ought to stand down from his position right away.”