Auto dealer Nico Hertel jailed six years over 68.6 kg port cannabis import
The Supreme Court sentenced Nico Hertel, 32, to six years’ imprisonment on 11 September 2026 for importing cannabis found on 14 March 2025 hidden in car seats inside a container at the port. Hertel, who ran an auto business in Anse Etoile, changed his plea to guilty after first denying the charge.
Nico Hertel, a 32-year-old businessman from La Gogue, Anse Etoile, was sentenced
on Friday 11 September 2026 after the Supreme Court convicted him of importing a
controlled drug.[1]Justice Brassel Adeline imposed six years’ imprisonment.[1]
Police arrested Hertel at the port on 14 March 2025 when 68,648 g of cannabis
was found concealed inside car seats in an imported container.[1]He initially
pleaded not guilty but later admitted the charge.[1]In court he said financial
pressure on his firm Auto World (PTY) Ltd had led him to accept an offer to import
drugs to clear debts.[1]
Time he had already spent in custody would be deducted from the six-year term,
and he had 30 days to appeal.[1]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
Seychelles’ Supreme Court sentenced Varis Preungprasob, 24, and Rutcha Pinitkarn, 21, to five years’ imprisonment each for importing cannabis after customs and police intercepted them on an Air Seychelles flight on 2 September 2025. Officers seized about 15.9 kg from each traveller.
Anti-Narcotics Bureau and customs officers arrested five Seychellois after finding 3 kg of compressed cannabis on an Air Seychelles flight from Johannesburg. Two were caught at the airport and three more, including an airline technician, were arrested later.
Seychelles' anti-drug agency seized 18.2 kg of compressed cannabis at Cascade and 39.75 kg at Beoliere on 26 and 28 January 2015, worth almost R29 million. Four suspects aged 20 to 45 appeared in court and were remanded while the agency pursued an importation network believed to run from Madagascar by boat.
Seychelles police arrested Terry Marie at Victoria's Inter Island Quay on 2 September 2000 with 369 grams of cannabis in a bag and 32 grams hidden in his underwear. Sentenced to the mandatory minimum of eight years for trafficking in 2004, he lost his appeal in October 2006.
