Mozambique: 1.4 tons of fentanyl seized by police at Maputo airport

Mozambican police seized 1.4 tons of fentanyl at Maputo airport, the national criminal investigation service (Sernic) of the southern African country announced Thursday.

Drug raids have been increasing in Mozambique in recent months. Before the seizure of 3.7 tons of fentanyl at the same airport in June, two Mexican nationals suspected of being linked to the cartel were arrested in April and chemical precursors were confiscated.

"Sernic (...) obtained information from its sources regarding the arrival of a shipment suspected of containing drugs, coming from Campinas, in the State of Sao Paulo (Brazil), stopping over in Luanda (Angola), and destined for the city of Maputo. The shipment was to arrive at Maputo airport in 3 batches, on August 1, 6 and 11, 2026," a police statement indicated.

Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid diverted as a narcotic and responsible for numerous overdoses. Its appearance in Mozambique is a new phenomenon.

Images released by the police show boxes bearing the logo of a Brazilian cosmetics brand filled with bottles of beauty products that contained the drug "in liquid form".

A 31-year-old Mozambican citizen was arrested at the airport's cargo terminal as he was about to withdraw the drugs.

In neighbouring South Africa, several raids in recent years have targeted methamphetamine laboratories where Mexican nationals were also operating.

Last year, the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) estimated in a report that the significant legal trade flows already existing between South Africa and Australia "may also contribute to the growth of this route" for drug trafficking.

"There is an insatiable demand for cocaine and methamphetamine in the Australian and New Zealand markets, where retail prices for these two substances are among the highest in the world," explained the Geneva-based NGO.

The development of these traffic routes is generally accompanied by an expansion of the domestic market.

The number of people receiving treatment in Mozambican hospitals for drug addiction increased by 38% in 2025, reaching 32,281, the government reported in April.

Maputo's total seizures that year amounted to 4.4 tons of narcotics, "including significant quantities of cocaine and cannabis," according to the government.

AFP