Trilateral Planning Cell · South Africa · Mozambique · Tanzania

Three states. One cell. The Southern Route is watched.

The Trilateral Planning Cell is the ministerial mechanism through which South Africa, Mozambique and Tanzania plan, coordinate and act together against drug trafficking and the organised crime that moves with it.

See our results How we work About the TPC

The record · Across seven major interdictions, July 2023 – July 2025

R1.3 billion

Value of drugs seized

≈ USD 72.65 million

7

Major interdictions

≈ 3 826 kg

3

Member states, one cell

Maputo

Established in Maputo

Supported by UNODC

Who we are

A ministerial mechanism, not a police force

The Trilateral Planning Cell is the ministerial mechanism through which South Africa, Mozambique and Tanzania plan, coordinate and act together against drug trafficking and the organised crime that moves with it.

Established by the Ministers responsible for policing of the three republics, the TPC turns political will into police work: shared intelligence, coordinated operations and a single regional picture of the Southern Route.

The TPC exists to see that movement whole, and to break it.

Case files

Latest case files

Three of the seven interdictions in the public record. Quantities, places and dates are published; operational detail is withheld by design.

Bricks of methamphetamine, crack cocaine and heroin from the false compartment, laid out on the ground

Lomahasha Border Post, Eswatini · 17–18 July 2025

The false compartment

337 kg264 kg methamphetamine · 64 kg crack cocaine · 8.8 kg heroin

Bricks of seized methamphetamine and heroin stacked on the floor, Tanzania, December 2023

Tanzania · 12–22 December 2023

The region’s largest recorded seizure

2 844 kg1 488 kg methamphetamine · 1 356 kg heroin

Inside the intercepted truck at Badplaas: packages laid across the load bed; the person present is pixelated

Badplaas, Mpumalanga, South Africa · 16 July 2023

The Lebombo corridor file

250 kg250 kg heroin

From the record

The evidence, redacted

All photographs

The network

No single service can watch an ocean

SAPSSouth African Police Service
Polícia da República de Moçambique and SERNIC
Tanzania Police Force and DCEA
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
SARPCCOSouthern African Regional Police Chiefs Cooperation Organisation
INTERPOL RB HARAREINTERPOL Regional Bureau Harare
RMIFCRegional Maritime Information Fusion Centre, Madagascar
RCOCRegional Coordination Operations Centre, Seychelles
SADCSADC structures
Eastern Africa Police Chiefs Cooperation Organisation
INTERPOLINTERPOL
EUROPOLEUROPOL
EU-ACT — EU Action against Drugs and Organised Crime
US-INL — Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs
DEADrug Enforcement Administration
National Crime Agency
MAOC(N)MAOC(N) — Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre (Narcotics), Lisbon

Next step

See how the cell works — and what it has put beyond reach

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