An airline worker in Australia has been arrested after a flight from South Africa when cops found drugs concealed in shampoo. This comes about a year after cocaine worth R500-million was flown between the countries - and as drugs are being intercepted at Gauteng's main airport.

Listen to this article 7 min Listen to this article 7 min Airport traffic and congestion increases internationally over the holiday period. So too does the potential for drugs being trafficked via planes.

In South Africa over the past few months there has been an increase in arrests of suspected couriers or "mules" arriving in the country with cocaine concealed in or on their bodies.

Now an arrest in Australia, which links to South Africa, points to the other ways drugs are being moved between countries.

Australia has deep drug trafficking connections with South Africa, about which Daily Maverick has reported extensively.

It is clear that organised crime groups there are linked to local ones.

Trafficking between the countries persists.

'Coma in a bottle'

The Australian Federal Police this week announced that officers had arrested an airline employee for allegedly importing 4.1 litres of gamma butyrolactone (GBL) there.

Australian police have described GBL as "an illicit substance commonly known as liquid ecstasy or 'coma in a bottle"'. A few millilitres of it can result in loss of consciousness and memory problems.

In the arrest linked to this country, Australia's federal police said: "The man, 29, of [the Sydney suburb]...