Man sentenced after full-fledged hydroponics lab found in his apartment
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Cape Town – A Gordon’s Bay man has been convicted by Strand Regional Court of possession of drugs, firearms and ammunition.
According to the spokesperson for the Directorate of Priority Crime Investigations (Hawks) in the Western Cape, Zinzi Hani, Kelvin Shaun Bester, 30, was arrested on February 6, 2019.
She said Bester was arrested by officers from the Hawks’ South African Narcotics Bureau (Saneb) with the Major Crime Response Team (MORT) after he and an acquaintance visited the offices. of the Hawks in Bellville.
Hani said the arrests came after the Hawks team reacted to reports of a “full-fledged hydroponics lab” run from an apartment in the Gordon’s Bay area.
“This led to the discovery of various glass containers filled with dagga, magic mushrooms and various types of ammunition as well as a rifle.
“The recoveries had a combined value of 120,000 rand,” Hani said.
Charges against Bester’s female acquaintance in court were subsequently dropped.
The court sentenced Bester to a fine of R10,000 or six months’ imprisonment for drug possession, for which three months of the sentence was suspended for three years.
He was also given a six-month suspended prison sentence for possession of a firearm as well as for possession of ammunition.
In an unrelated incident, the Hawks managed to secure a conviction and sentence against a former Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Department traffic policeman Constable Mazulwandile Wilson Makaula, 49, for bribery. He was sentenced to six years in direct prison.
In 2018, Makaula was on duty at Vosloorus making random stops and searches when he stopped a motorist.
He asked the driver for R300, threatening to impound the vehicle without just cause.
The driver gave Makaila R150 in cash so that his vehicle would not be impounded.
However, the traffic policeman was not happy and demanded the motorist’s unpaid amount of R150 on the same day.
The matter was brought to the attention of the Hawks Serious Corruption Investigation Team in Germiston.
An undercover operation was carried out at a shopping complex where Makaula was arrested and found in possession of the entrapment money, R150.
He was sentenced in June.
