Cocaine smuggling suspect Nobanda Nolubabalo. Photo: www.krobkruakao.com
Photos and video have surfaced of alleged dreadlock cocaine smuggler Nobanda Nolubabalo’s arrest at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport.
South African ambassador to Thailand Douglas Gibson has confirmed Nobanda’s arrest, but International Relations spokesman Clayson Monyela said that the country would not interfere with Thailand’s laws on drugs.
“Our ambassador visited her in jail but unfortunately we are not going to interfere with that country’s laws. It’s up to that country to do what they normally do with people found with drugs. That’s a sovereign country,” said Monyela, according to the South African Daily Dispatch website.
Nobanda was arrested on Dec. 12 afterpolice noticed a white substance in her dreadlocks at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport. When they searched her hair they found 1.5kg of cocaine with street value of THB4.5 million. Photos and video from the UK’s Daily Mail website show police removing tubes of the substance from what look like fake dreadlocks made of black yarn.
The Daily Dispatch reported that friends and family had gathered outside her family’s home in Joza township of Grahamstown, South Africa. “We are in contact with the [Thai] embassy and we are trying to consolidate all the information at the moment. We also need to consult a lawyer. Please understand that it is not that the family doesn’t want to speak to the media, we just can’t do so now,” an unidentified spokesman for the family said.
Madeline Schoeman, former headmistress of Grahamstown’s Victoria Girls High where Nobanda attended told the Daily Dispatch that she was shocked and that Nobanda was a wonderful person.
“We don’t know what caused such a desperate decision. We don’t know the circumstances that led to this but we are thinking of her family and parents and of what they are going through right now,” said Schoeman.
Embedded below is a video report on the case by news site Zoopy that shows more photos.
