On 4 January, police announced that three suspects had been arrested days earlier after a security scanner picked up irregular images, presumably of their hand luggage.
“The trio had just flown into South Africa from Madagascar and were en-route to Dubai via Ethiopia last week when they were apprehended,” spokesperson Colonel Athlenda Mathe said.
“Upon questioning of the suspects and further inspection of their hand luggage, officials discovered the gold bars and some foreign currency.”
While police said the gold bars had a street value of about R61-million, they could, based on the value of a kilogram of gold and depending on the quality of the gold, fetch around R67.5-million on the legal market, according to website market charts.
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