South Africa’s High Commissioner to Singapore Bursted for Drug Traffiking

 The South African High Commissioner to Singapore, Hazel Ngubeni has been fired following an exposé by the Sunday Times, South Africa’s  top media house, that she was a convicted drug trafficker.

Times SA reports that Ngubeni’s contract was terminated over the weekend by the Department of International Relations which said this in their press statement:

“Following the withdrawal of her security clearance by the State Security Agency, the department has revoked Ngubeni’s contract for her posting as a high commissioner … the employment contract has been terminated.”

Hazel Ngubeni’s history with drug trafficking started when she worked as an air hostess in the ’90s. Times SA noted that in September 1995, Ngubeni was arrested at the OR Tambo International Airport and charged with smuggling 9kg of heroin from Thailand.

The disgraced Hazel Ngubeni reportedly had told a cabin crew member to carry her bag into South Africa, but he didn’t know that the drug was stashed in a ‘false compartment’. However, the duo were acquitted in 1997 after a key witness refused to testify against her.

That didn’t deter the woman who proceeded to work with South African Airways as an air hostess, but was fired after she was busted in New York for smuggling a bag of cocaine. Ngubeni was jailed for 2 years.

She reportedly returned home in 2001, and years later, during her vetting for the diplomatic post, refused to mention her drug traffic history.

In 2013, Hazel Ngubeni was named the high commissioner to Singapore, but was finally ordered home last year, after the Sunday Times’s breaking news detailing her history. And now, she has been sacked.

Though the Department of International Relations says they have notified her of her sack, Ngubeni claims she has yet to get a letter ending her contract.