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Kamini Padayachee <\/p>\n
kamini.padayachee@inl,co.za<\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n A DURBAN North woman, who was convicted of drug dealing in November, is not opposing the confirmation of an order preserving her property \u2013 as a precursor to its confiscation by the state \u2013 because she does not have the money to do so. <\/p>\n The state is applying to seize the house, which it says was used to run a sophisticated dagga laboratory. <\/p>\n Tracey Ann Pretorius, her boyfriend Tyrone Hofland, Travis Bailey, Bonzile Chutshela and Senzele Dlezi were each convicted in the Durban Regional Court, after being arrested in October last year, of one count of dealing in dagga. <\/p>\n The arrests followed a raid at Pretorius\u2019s Briar Lane, Durban North, home, where 44kg of dagga with an estimated street value of R2.2 million was found. <\/p>\n The dagga was of a more potent strain than the local variety and was being cultivated in a laboratory that had a sprinkler system, timers, floodlights, fans and air conditioning. <\/p>\n The facility was situated in a concealed basement in the house. Last month, the Assets Forfeiture Unit secured an order to preserve Pretorius\u2019s home, pending an application to have it forfeited to the state. <\/p>\n Yesterday, the order was confirmed by Durban High Court Judge Nompumelelo Radebe, and costs were reserved. <\/p>\n In a letter which forms part of the court papers, Pretorius\u2019s attorneys, Sarah Pugsley and Associates, said their client had consented to the confirmation of the order because she did not have the money to oppose it. <\/p>\n \u201cShe has consented simply to save herself the legal costs of opposing the application, which she can ill afford,\u201d the letter reads. <\/p>\n However, the letter also indicates that Pretorius does not agree that the state is entitled to preserve the property and would oppose a forfeiture application. <\/p>\n \u201cShe does not accept the truth and accuracy of many of the affidavits and reserves the right to respond to these statements in the application for forfeiture.\u201d <\/p>\n Pretorius would continue to live at the home pending the forfeiture application. <\/p>\n Hidden panel <\/p>\n In his affidavit, public prosecutions deputy director Kenneth Samuel said the house had played a role in the drug-dealing activities. <\/p>\n He said the area where the dagga was grown was virtually undetectable and had been adapted to accommodate the drug operation. <\/p>\n The investigating officer, Warrant Officer Luke Tancrel, said the dagga laboratory was located behind a hidden panel in the home, which could only be reached through a small opening. <\/p>\n \u201cThe room had been equipped to facilitate the cultivation of dagga plants\u2026 There were about 105 plants in this first room. In the second room, there were rows of dagga plants, between waist and shoulder height, growing inside black bags. There were also small plants growing in black bags beneath halogen lights, trays with small dagga plants in them, fans, water drums, pumps and a piping system with small sprinklers.\u201d <\/p>\n Pretorius and the four men would be sentenced in January. They are all out on bail. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kamini Padayachee kamini.padayachee@inl,co.za A DURBAN North woman, who was convicted of drug dealing in November, is not opposing the confirmation of an order preserving her property \u2013 as a precursor to its confiscation by the state \u2013 because she does not have the money to do so. The state is applying to seize the house, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-6362","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6362\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}