Police seize 18 kg of cannabis in a parcel beside a Sonef bus in Hodh El Gharbi
Mauritanian police found 18 kg of cannabis in a parcel left beside a Sonef transport company bus at the Kouki Zemal crossing point in Hodh El Gharbi on 21 October 2015 and halted the bus. The parcel's sender had not been identified, and Sonef sent a team, including a security officer, to negotiate the bus's onward travel.
🇲🇷 Kouki Zemal crossing point, Hodh El Gharbi, Mauritania
Mauritanian police seized18 kg of Indian hemp, the local name for cannabis, on
Wednesday 21 October 2015 at the Kouki Zemal crossing point in the Hodh El
Gharbi region.[1]The cannabis was hidden in a parcel found beside one of the
buses of the transport company Sonef.[1]
Police stopped the bus, which was driven by a man named Zeini and carried the
registration number 1235AA01.[1]Sonef sent an emergency mission of company
officials to the crossing to negotiate letting the bus continue its route, and
the mission included a security officer, according to sources.[1]
The sender of the parcel had not yet been identified, and the report names no
one charged in the case.[1][2][3]
The account was translated from Arabic by the Mauritanian news portal Cridem,
which credits the Mauritanian outlet Elhourriya for the original report.[1]
The African Press Agency described a Wednesday-evening seizure of about 20 kg of chanvre indien at a frontier post with Mali.[4][3]The African Press Agency said the drug was hidden in luggage aboard a private company’s Nouakchott–Bamako bus.[4]The bus driver told police he knew nothing about the parcel.[4][3]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
No arrest figure was published; the parcel's sender was unidentified and the report does not say whether the driver Zeini or anyone else was detained.
The report gives no details of where the Kouki Zemal crossing point lies or which border it serves, and no map could be opened to confirm the exact location.
No court step or investigation outcome after the seizure was reported.
Only one openable account was found, a Cridem translation of Elhourriya; Elhourriya's original Arabic page returned an error when opened.
The 21 October date is derived from the report's wording that the seizure was on Wednesday, with the article published 22 October 2015.
The photo on the page is captioned with only the weight of the seized load, so it is listed as a media link but cannot be confirmed to show this parcel specifically.
The APA account gives about 20 kg at an unnamed Mali-border post, while the existing Elhourriya-derived account gives 18 kg at Kouki Zemal; the reports do not clarify whether the difference is rounding or a different nearby seizure.
Gendarmes at the PK55 border post in Dakhlet Nouadhibou found about 26 kg of cannabis resin hidden in a vehicle heading into Mauritania on 29 September 2026 and arrested two foreign nationals. The gendarmerie sealed the drug and began judicial proceedings against the two.
Police and gendarmerie units announced a run of raids in July and August 2026, breaking up at least ten networks and arresting dozens of people. The largest seizures were 202 kg of cannabis resin hidden in food shipments, 230 kg in a truck trailer at Bassiknou and 210 kg at Nouadhibou, alongside smaller amounts and thousands of psychotropic tablets.
Police intercepted 30 slabs of cannabis weighing 27 kg at the El-Messellem control post in Guidimakha wilaya on 19 November 2025, arresting a driver caught transporting the load from a neighbouring country. The Ghabou commissariat opened an inquiry.
Customs officers at Rosso, on Mauritania's border with Senegal, seized a large cannabis load from traffickers heading for Nouakchott, the customs service announced on Facebook. Customs released a video of the cannabis wrapped and hidden in plastic baskets, but gave no weight, count or arrests.
