TRANSNATIONAL CRIME: Motlanthe urges cops to target the cartel Big Boys to overhaul Africa’s drug policies

Former South African president Kgalema Motlanthe has again urged law enforcers to go after “the big boys” of illicit narco trafficking instead of their clients, drug users.

He was speaking at a conference in Cape Town on Monday, 9 November 2026, as chair of the Eastern and Southern Africa Commission on Drugs (ESACD).

The conference was angled around the theme, “rethinking current policy responses to drug use and personal possession”.

Time for change

Delegates described an “illicit drug world” that had transformed, and emphasised the need for policies and actions to be adapted to respond to this criminal threat.

The commission was formally launched in 2023 to help in the fight against drug trafficking.

The organisation has since pushed for law enforcers to focus on narcotraffickers instead of criminalising drug users, who need better support.

The commission’s conference in Cape Town runs over two days (the first day on Monday was open to the media) at a time when shifting trafficking patterns have become more apparent in South Africa.

SA is now a transit, consumption and production hub of illicit drugs, with several massive methamphetamine (tik) factories with alleged links to Mexican cartels recently being uncovered here.

Sources in law enforcement, who have spoken to Daily Maverick on condition of anonymity, said they were worried that top drug traffickers, many probably based in other countries, were not being arrested, whereas their local foot soldiers were.

Another concern they raised with Daily Maverick is that police were also not managing to arrest those who were part of the drug manufacturing process, ranging from complicit chemical producers to transporters to equipment suppliers.

This ties into the focus of the commission’s conference.

‘For decades, our policies failed’

Motlanthe, addressing the conference on Monday, said: “For decades, our policies have failed to solve the problems created by the illicit drug trade.

“In many cases, they have done more harm than good.”

He and others who spoke at Monday’s conference flagged several other issues that needed to be addressed, including:

• The rapidly growing illicit synthetic drug trade;

• The shifting drug trafficking scene with international ramifications; and

• Imprisonment of drug users, or individuals found with drugs for personal use, while traffickers continued to break the law and push out narco consignments.

Motlanthe said that punitive measures were prioritised over harm reduction – in other words, drug users were being punished instead of being helped.

More people were being jailed for drug offences, which was adding to overcrowding in prisons, while traffickers fuelling these offences continued to operate.

“A shift in approach is needed,” Motlanthe said.

He said several countries had “explored alternatives to imprisonment”.

Drug users needed rehabilitation and treatment, including access to essential medicines and pain control (to help wean them off drugs and treat health issues related to drug use), Motlanthe said.

Speaking during a break in the conference, Motlanthe again told journalists that law enforcers should target “the big boys” and trafficking honchos, as opposed to end users.

Those end users, he said, often consumed substances without knowing what was in them, and it would be beneficial to have spaces where they could find information, including what they were actually using.

‘Jail can worsen situations’

Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia told the conference that “serious responses” were needed to tackle trafficking and the harms that drugs caused.

Law enforcement sources have told Daily Maverick that aside from potential corruption in their ranks, stretched police resources in South Africa left them feeling as if they could not fully respond to trafficking issues.

(Parliament recently heard that some police detectives were juggling between 600 and 800 case dockets each.)

The conference, meanwhile, began on the same day the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry resumed its hearings into whether a cartel has infiltrated politics, the criminal justice system and the private sector.

Accusations underpinning and arising from the commission have sparked a policing reset in South Africa, which Cachalia mentioned at Monday’s conference.

He listed what police officers needed to dismantle organised crime networks: capable intelligence, dedicated investigations and strong law enforcers.

Cachalia said honesty was also required to determine which actions and policies worked and which did not.

Overcrowding was a problem in prisons across South Africa – he added that it was known that “incarceration can worsen already problematic situations”.

Alternatives to prison terms therefore needed to be looked at.

‘Faster, more sophisticated’

Addressing Monday’s conference, Monica Juma, the executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the Director-General of the United Nations Office in Vienna, said the illicit drug trade was “moving faster” and “becoming more sophisticated”.

It was also “putting down roots” in places it had previously simply passed through.

For example, cocaine trafficking was becoming more prevalent in eastern and southern Africa.

Juma mentioned the recent methamphetamine discoveries in South Africa, linked to Latin America. These were also linked to, among others, “local collaborators” and chemists.

Juma said the discovery of the factories pointed to “a significant shift [to] manufacturing drugs on African soil.”

Mexican cartels expand into Africa

Several incidents suggest Mexican cartels are increasingly active in Africa (this may be because of harsher crackdowns elsewhere). Several drug factories have been uncovered in South Africa. Among those arrested are Mexican suspects.

In April 2026, authorities in bordering Mozambique announced that they had confiscated masses of drug-producing chemicals and arrested three suspects, two from Mexico, with alleged Sinaloa cartel links.

Daily Maverick understands that sources with ties to policing are concerned about drug producers moving into South Africa from Mozambique. The month after the Mozambique crackdown, in May 2026, authorities in Nigeria announced the dismantling of “a highly sophisticated, multimillion-dollar Nigerian-Mexican methamphetamine production syndicate”.

This also meant that law enforcers were “no longer dealing with just shipments” of drugs entering the country.

Juma said the law-enforcement focus needed to be all-encompassing and include maritime trafficking routes, borders and judicial systems.

She also reiterated how drug users should be helped through treatment and harm reduction and that tackling trafficking and associated issues needed to be dealt with holistically – through health, justice and correctional services, as well as law enforcement and civil society.

‘A whole new illicit drug world’

Jason Eligh, a senior expert on drugs and drug markets with the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, gave an overview of the global drug landscape and the thinking that had been applied to it.

“The illicit drug world, as we once knew it, no longer exists,” he said.

“The traditional architecture of international drug control was built on a set of assumptions about how drugs are produced, how they move, and who moves them.”

Those “assumptions” were reflected in three international drug control conventions and related frameworks and cooperation agreements that produced “the global response structure”.

“These elements were never perfect, but for several decades they gave us a workable map of a recognisable landscape,” Eligh said.

“Today that landscape has been transformed. Our map is out of date, and navigating by this outdated map has serious consequences.”

Was delighted to participate at the high-level Eastern and Southern Africa Commission on Drugs meeting themed “Rethinking current policy responses to drug use and personal possession” in Cape Town, and to deliver an opening statement on the growing drug challenge in the region. As criminal syndicates shift from trafficking to manufacturing synthetic drugs directly on African soil, our strategic responses must evolve to target these networks and the corruption that enables their harmful operations. We need an integrated approach to protect youth, vulnerable populations and communities. We must also replace stigma with evidence-based prevention, treatment, and robust harm reduction. @UNODC stands ready to support Member States in implementing people-centered, human rights-aligned policies that offer clear alternatives to punishment and safeguard public health. My sincere gratitude to His Excellency Kgalema Motlanthe for his leadership of the ESACD, for convening this crucial and timely regional dialogue and for inviting me to join and participate. UNODC looks forward to the outcomes of the meeting and to strengthen cooperation with all actors engaged in the search for, and execution of, effective responses to the growing drug challenges in the region and beyond.

— Monica Juma (@Monica_Juma_) November 9, 2026

Previously predictable drug routes and hierarchical cartels were among the elements making up the illicit drug trade that had now changed.

Eligh said the Eastern and Southern Africa Commission on Drugs, through actions including research and two years of in-person consultations in communities across the relevant region, was addressing the change and trying to draw an improved drug policy “map”. DM