THE infiltration of drug traffickers into Namibia appears to be continuing unabated, with another Angolan national arrested in the Caprivi Region on Friday after he allegedly entered the country with a consignment of cocaine.

The arrest of suspected drug courier Pedro Adelberto Tanzey took place on the same day that four of his countrymen appeared in the Windhoek Magistrate's Court in the run-up to their sentencing on a charge of dealing in cocaine.

The four Angolans were sentenced to eight years' imprisonment each on Tuesday.

The 40-year-old Tanzey and a Namibian national, Muekonga Trushcan Ditaditeni (31), were arrested near the Wenela border post between Namibia and Zambia after they had allegedly entered Namibia in a car driven by Ditaditeni.

When the car was searched, 190 "bullets" of suspected cocaine - plastic-wrapped capsules of the drug, which is the form in which drug couriers swallow the cocaine in order to transport it inside their digestive systems - were found in the vehicle, it is claimed.

Tanzey and Ditaditeni appeared in the Katima Mulilo Magistrate's Court on Tuesday on charges of dealing in dangerous dependence-producing drugs and possession of such drugs.

Magistrate Rachel Sakala postponed their case to August 19 for further investigation and for them to obtain legal representation. They remain in Police custody in the meantime.

The two men's court appearance and the sentencing of the four admitted drug couriers caught at Hosea Kutako International Airport on April 15 while bringing a combined 3,235 kilograms of cocaine, valued at N$1,617 million, into Namibia inside their intestines, took place a day after another Angolan had made an appearance in the Walvis Bay Magistrate's Court on a similar charge.

Irene Luisa Bionga Da Costa (32) was arrested on May 27 after arriving at Walvis Bay Airport on a flight from Johannesburg.

It is alleged that 99 "bullets" of cocaine were found in her possession, with some of them discovered hidden in her luggage and more detected inside her body when she was X-rayed.

According to the record of her case at the Walvis Bay Magistrate's Court, Da Costa pleaded guilty to a charge of dealing in potentially dangerous dependence-producing drugs valued at about N$600 000 when she appeared in court on June 9.

She returned to court on Monday, and her case was postponed to July 13. Da Costa, too, remains in custody.

The Commanding Officer of the Police's Drug Law Enforcement Unit, Detective Chief Inspector Barry de Klerk, testified in the Windhoek Magistrate's Court this week that until recently cocaine traffickers had mainly used Namibia as a transit country to get their drugs to their ultimate destinations elsewhere.

The country has in the meantime become an end user of cocaine, though, with the result that traffickers are entering Namibia with the drug in order to deliver it to local cocaine dealers, he said.