South Africa Tied to Mexican and Colombian Cartels: Clues were Provided in a Panama Drug Bust

A consignment of drugs was intercepted in Panama about two months ago that was reported here on NewsroomPanama.com and it provides more clues about the global organized crime cartels that have their sights set on South Africa, and the routes they are using to get cocaine to this country.  Black fabric conceals their faces, and some clutch long firearms as they stand among stacks of boxes.  These are police officers in photographs of a drug bust carried out in Panama on 30 January 2025.  The images provide clues about international drug trafficking – and notorious billion-dollar cartels – that are tied to South Africa.  A press statement from the Panama police, of which the photographs are a part, said 504 packages of suspected drugs concealed in 18 suitcases were found in a shipping container.  Based on the images, the drugs appear to be blocks of compressed cocaine.

Mexico to Mzansi

“The suitcases were coming from Mexico en route to Panama and Spain, with South Africa as their final destination,” the press release said.  This suggests that traffickers in Mexico, or operating via that country while pulling strings from elsewhere, were the source of the drugs.  Daily Maverick has previously reported on how evidence from other cases suggested that two notorious Mexican cartels – Sinaloa and Jalisco – were among the international drug trafficking organizations active in South Africa.  It was also reported that fentanyl, the opioid that sparked an overdose crisis in the US and which Mexican cartels are known to push, had started moving among traffickers in this country. 

Panama Seizes 504 Drug Packages Bound for South Africa – Newsroom Panama

Panama Seizes 504 Drug Packages Bound for South Africa January 30, 2025 In a coordinated operation with the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the Panamanian National Police seized 504 packages of suspected drugs in a container from Mexico that was in transit to South Africa. Further backing suspicions of cartels being active in South Africa was a raid carried out in July 2024 at a farm in Limpopo, where a suspected drug laboratory was uncovered.  That crackdown resulted in the arrest of three men from Mexico – Jorge Humberto Gonzales, Alejandro Gutierrez Lopez and Ruben Vidan Rodriguez – along with two local suspects, Simphiwe Melvin Khumalo and Roelof Frederick Botha.  Hawks head Lieutenant General Godfrey Lebeya previously said the Mexicans may be Sinaloa cartel members.  The drug bust in Panama now provides more clues about trafficking via Mexico and South Africa, as well as elsewhere.

Panama and Colombia

Panama effectively connects North and South America. Mexico is in North America, while Colombia is in South America, and both are home to organized crime cartels.  Like those countries, and also South Africa, Panama has a gang problem of its own linked to the illicit drug trade.  It is known as a key transit point for drugs being trafficked from Colombia to the US.  In September 2024, Panama was referenced several times when the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced it was sanctioning two businesses based in Mexico and five individuals from Colombia.  Although the business had alleged links to the Sinaloa cartel, the individuals were accused of heading Colombia’s Clan del Golfo (CDG), which the US Embassy in Panama described as “one of the country’s largest drug trafficking organizations”. The CDG was also involved in human trafficking.

Multibillion-Dollar Clan del Golfo

A US Drug Enforcement Administration statement from 2023, about the guilty plea of former CDG head Dairo Antonio Úsuga David, better known as Otoniel, referred to the gang as a “Colombian paramilitary and multibillion-dollar drug organization” with as many as 6,000 members.