WATCH: OR Tambo airport now ‘a drug route’, often to jail in Asia

Still shaken from eight years of imprisonment after being arrested for smuggling drugs into a Chinese territory, a South African woman now in her thirties struggles to pick up the pieces of her life.

Requesting to remain anonymous for her own safety, she said her nightmare began when she was at the lowest point of her life. At the age of 27 she had found herself unemployed with a child to fend for after her boyfriend, the father of her child, had abandoned her.

She said it was a chance meeting in a tavern (township nightclub) that changed her life forever.

“I met one Nigerian guy who asked me if I am working and I told him that I was not. He then told me that he owned an agency overseas and convinced me that he would give me a job if I wanted one. I agreed and gave him all my documents, and then he told me there is a job in Malaysia where I can work as a waitress in a hotel. I agreed and then he bought a ticket for me to go.”

She said when she landed in Malaysia she was picked up by another Nigerian man and taken to a house elsewhere where she met three other women like her from Uganda, and two other Nigerians. She said after being locked up, robbed of her documents and cellphones and brutally raped, along with the other women, she realised that her trip was about to get even worse.

“After two weeks they told me that they had another branch in Argentina and that I had to go there. They had given me pills with drugs to swallow and they were very hard to swallow. The men were very rude to me, threatening me and I tried to swallow. I vomited for three days and then afterwards they got medicine for me and I was able to swallow about 100 pieces and travel to Malaysia.”

She said upon reaching Malaysia, with an uncomfortable stomach, she was told she had to deliver the drugs in her stomach to China the following day.

After buying her the ticket she boarded the flight and landed in Macau, a region located on the south coast of China, where she was caught.

She said while she was weak and still dealing with an uncomfortable stomach the customs department at the airport had questioned her about her trips and shared their suspicions about her carrying drugs.

“I started crying and they saw I had drugs. They asked me where the drugs were and I told them it was in my stomach. They took me to hospital where I was admitted for one week and later, they took me to prison,” she said.

She said her years in the prison cell were the toughest years of her life as she struggled to communicate, and paid for carrying drugs by being slapped with a long eight-year prison sentence. After serving her time, she returned to South Africa seven months ago – but returning home was another challenge.

“When you come back home as an ex-prisoner you don’t even get any counselling or rehabilitation, it’s very difficult to get closer to the community so life is very hard,” she shared.

Advocating for the rights of victims tricked into drug trafficking and those arrested for drug-related crimes abroad, managing director and founder of Baagi Ba South Africa Glory Matipile said since the organisation opened its doors in March 2018, they had seen several cases similar to that of the unnamed victim above.

She explained that that there were several ways victims fell into the traps of drug lords. These included people who looked for opportunities online but lacked guidance and information on how to protect themselves or how to identify a scam, and hostesses in clubs or money lenders in communities who led victims to human traffickers.

She said the organisation had written letters to President Cyril Ramaphosa and Minister of Justice Ronald Lamola but after receiving no response, had written a memorandum to request prison transfer agreements for all prisoners arrested abroad.

“We got a response that said it would be taken to the minister for women. Our response is why? Is he saying that the issues of people being arrested in foreign countries is a gender-based issue? Why is he not doing anything? We are saying we want our people back!”

OR Tambo International Airport now a drug throughfare

During a press briefing yesterday it was revealed by the Baagi Ba and Locked Up in A Foreign Country, another non-profit organisation, that several international airports were concerned about the rise in drug trafficking traced through OR Tambo International Airport.

From left, Father John Wotherspoon; General Secretary and founder of Baagi Ba South Africa, Glory Matipile; Locked Up SA chairperson Patricia Gerber; and Former Hawks investigator Marcel van der Watt at a press conference in Johannesburg, 30 January 2020, on the rise in drug trafficking cases via South Africa’s OR Tambo International Airport. Picture: Nigel Sibanda

Locked Up in A Foreign Country’s Patricia Gerber revealed that 100 foreign males were currently in custody in Mauritius for trafficking drugs through OR Tambo. Glory Matipile added that many drug mules were female and a high proportion of them were elderly.

An Austrailian Catholic Priest, Father John Wotherspoon, who worked as a prison chaplain in a Hong Kong prison, also shared that 20% of all drug mules arrested in the Chinese city in 2018 and 2019 were travelling from OR Tambo. Most of them were caught in possession of cocaine.

According to Hong Kong Airport’s customs and excise (C&E) department statistics, three South Africans were arrested at the airport in 2010, seven in 2011, three in 2012, two in 2013, one in 2014, 14 in 2015 and seven in 2016.

He said his job had exposed him to the unfortunate circumstances of South Africans who had fallen victims of human and drug trafficking. He said with Kenya and Tanzania tightening their border controls at their airports, he hoped South Africa would follow suit.

“I am hoping that the South African government does something about the OR Tambo airport because drugs are flowing through there,” said Wotherspoon.

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