Zimbabwe's highways double as drug pipelines

Zimbabwe's highways, long celebrated as lifelines that link cities, towns and villages, are increasingly becoming corridors of contraband. Alongside buses packed with weary travellers and trucks loaded with goods, a darker trade is thriving: narcotics and unregistered medicines are being smuggled with growing boldness, often by those entrusted to move people and cargo safely.

Despite intensified police operations, the flow of drugs across the country has not slowed. In the first week of September 2025 alone, a wave of arrests revealed just how entrenched the problem has become. On the busy Ngundu–Tanganda Road, police acting on a tip-off intercepted a bus and discovered 66,5 kilograms of compressed mbanje hidden in 23 plastic parcels. The culprits were not elusive underworld figures but the vehicle's own crew — driver Juda Gondo, 27, and conductor Abraham Marakia, 62.

Further south, in Beitbridge, a passenger's suitcase was found to contain 7,4 kilograms of dagga. In Gwanda, police stopped a Toyota Quantum and uncovered bags brimming with the drug, some concealed inside cereal boxes. At the Beitbridge Border Post, a haulage truck driver, Asha Muchenje, was arrested after officers uncovered 19 boxes of Broncleer cough syrup and three boxes of Astra Pain hidden in his cab. In Harare's Southerton suburb, police recovered hundreds of bottles of the addictive syrups from suspects travelling in two private vehicles.

The seizures highlight a disturbing expansion of the trade beyond cannabis. Codeine-based cough syrups such as Broncleer, highly addictive and popular among young people, are now being trafficked in bulk. Their circulation has become one of the most worrying trends in Zimbabwe's growing drug problem.

National police spokesperson Commissioner Paul Nyathi has insisted that law enforcement is determined to stamp out the trade. "We will not hesitate to arrest anyone found dealing or consuming drugs," he said, warning bus crews and haulage drivers against using their jobs as cover for smuggling. He emphasised that stop-and-search operations will remain a permanent feature on major highways.

Yet for every seizure, the problem appears to resurface elsewhere. Experts say the scale of cross-border and domestic traffic makes it impossible for authorities to search every vehicle thoroughly. For many transport workers grappling with economic hardship, smuggling offers an irresistible supplement to meagre wages. Opportunistic passengers are also increasingly willing to act as mules in exchange for quick cash.

The consequences extend far beyond the arrests and headlines. Each intercepted consignment represents drugs that would otherwise have fuelled addiction, wrecked families and undermined public health. While police raids serve as an essential firewall, they are largely reactive. As long as poverty, demand and porous routes persist, Zimbabwe's highways will remain battlegrounds between law enforcement and those chasing the easy money of the drug trade.

For now, the nation's vital transport arteries carry both the lifeblood of commerce and the poison of a crisis that shows no signs of slowing.