Customs seize 5.6 kg of cannabis from a bus passenger in Koutiala
On 6 September 2026 Malian customs at the PK 11 post in Koutiala found 5.60 kg of cannabis and 4,000 tramadol tablets in a passenger's backpack on a bus from Yorosso to Bamako. The passenger, described as a pupil, was arrested.
On Sunday 6 September 2026, at about 10:30, officers at the PK 11 customs post in Koutiala searched a local company’s bus travelling from Yorosso to Bamako.[1]A passenger was keeping a backpack close beside him.[1]In the customs yard, with the passengers present, officers found 10 balls of cannabis weighing 5.60 kg in all, and 400 blister packs of tramadol tablets, Tapentadol 250 mg, which is 4,000 tablets.[1][2]
Fasso Actu said the Directorate General of Customs reported that the drugs and the tablets were seized and that the passenger, described as a pupil, was arrested for whatever followed.[2]Mali 24 gives the same weight, the same count of tablets and the same arrest.[1]
The next day customs seized 1,530 kg of Turkish spaghetti at a Bamako bus station.[1][2]That was a separate stop.[1]
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Ten black-wrapped packages and blister packs of tablets laid out on a tiled floor.Photo details
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Source: Fasso ActuThe same packages and tablets, beside a box of spaghetti from the separate Bamako seizure the next day.Photo details
Fasso Actufassoactu.comFRKoutiala-Bamako : les Douanes saisissent 5,6 kg de cannabis, 4 000 comprimés et 1,53 tonne de spaghettis
Open questions the AI reported
The passenger is not named. Customs described him as a pupil.
No court outcome was reported.
The customs directorate's own page could not be opened. Both news reports follow the customs account.
The pin is the town of Koutiala. The PK 11 post is not separately mapped.
The same customs note describes a separate seizure the next day of 1,530 kg of Turkish spaghetti at a Bamako bus station. That is a different event and is left out here.
On the evening of 17 September 2026 Bamako’s mobile customs brigade stopped a goods truck at Sénou and seized 230 kg of cannabis hidden under plastic waste. The driver and his apprentice fled. Customs valued the load at 312 million CFA francs.
On 21 August 2026 customs officers at the Kayes wharf intercepted a national of an English-speaking West African country carrying ten bricks of cannabis. The authorities gave no weight or destination for the cannabis, and the companion flour and pasta seizure is excluded from cannabis figures.
On 25 July 2025 Mali’s customs intelligence service intercepted two freight trucks from a neighbouring country and seized 104 balls of cannabis hidden in fitted compartments. No official weight was announced and no arrests were reported in the accounts.
Police in Bamako's 12th arrondissement arrested a truck driver and one of his suppliers on 6 October 2020 at Titibougou, on the road to Koulikoro, after cannabis hidden in the truck's tyres spilled onto the roadside. Officers seized 122 kg of cannabis herb, which the accounts say was bound for Dakar.
