NOTORIOUS BETHLEHEM DRUG DEALER SENTENCED

Photo: Hawks Logo

By: Neo Ntsele

The notorious Bethlehem drug dealer, Nigerian Okwudili Augustine Nwabo 36, who goes by the alias "CJ", has been sentenced to eight years imprisonment by the Bethlehem Magistrates' Court.

He was found guilty and sentenced on Tuesday 2, for dealing in drugs and corruption.

On 8 January 2019, a member of Bethlehem SAPS, who was reacting to information provided by concerned residents, visited a house on the busy De Villiers Street where he recovered sachets of CAT drug and cash upon searching CJ. On 23 June 2021, a member of the Bloemfontein Anti-Gang Unit, who was posted in Bethlehem, received information about a vehicle transporting drugs.

He cornered a vehicle fitting the description at a filling station and confronted the driver.

The accused offered him money to look the other way.

CJ was immediately placed under arrest for corruption.

On a charge of dealing in drugs, the court sentenced CJ to seven years imprisonment of which two years is suspended for five years.

On the count of corruption, he was sentenced to three years imprisonment. The two sentences will run separately resulting in an effective eight years imprisonment.

In addition, the accused was declared unfit to possess a firearm.

"CJ's sentencing will surely bring a sense of justice to the people of Bethlehem. Our appeal is that they exercise patience as they trust us with removing criminals from the streets of Bohlokong, one drug dealer at a time. Let us hold hands in reporting drug syndicates and thereby saving our youth from a lifestyle of drug dependency," appealed Free State Head of the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks), Major General Mokgadi Bokaba.