More drug mules coming from Geduld are serving time for drug smuggling in overseas prisons.
This surfaced after the Addie did a story on March 12 about a woman from Geduld, speaking about her relative being caught in possession of drugs in Hong Kong. Read more about it here.
Another woman (56), who does not want her name to be mentioned as she fears for her life, says her husband (60) has been in a prison in Malaysia since the latter part of 2014.
The woman says she thinks he was caught with crystal meth worth about R2-million, but is not sure of all these facts.
She has heard from her husband once since he left home when he was allowed to call her from the prison shortly after he was detained.
He once called her sister-in-law, saying he was still alive.
What worries her is that she does not even know where in Malaysia her husband is, nor in what prison he is detained.
She only has his prison number, confirming that he is in a Malaysian prison and that he was supposed to be in court on March 16.
She does not know if he has been sentenced yet, nor what will happen or has already happened to him.
The woman says neither she nor her husband or their children are drug users.
Her husband lost his job early last year and he was desperate to get money.
He had been without work for eight months when an ex-colleague recruited him to take the drugs out of the country.
The ex-colleague promised her husband R20 000 for this “delivery”, but her husband was caught at a border post into Malaysia with the drugs.
The man who apparently sent her husband called the woman after she discovered that her husband was detained, promising to pay her home rent for three months.
She only got this money for one month before the man could not be reached on his phone and disappeared.
The man also told her that her husband would be released within three months, but this time has almost doubled since he was arrested and her husband is still in this overseas prison.
The woman says she did not want her husband to go on this trip, but because of problems at home she could not talk to him before departure.
She is very worried about her husband, knowing that he will worry about her coping all by herself.
This is the first time ever they have been separated from each other in the over 30 years they had been married.
She says she hears stories from people in the community, and some even say her husband has died in the prison.
These stories and the waiting for a call and news about her husband is very painful for the woman.
Money is scarce and she is thankful for every cent she earns at her job and all the help she gets from the community.
This man is the fifth person from Geduld, Henry Harber from the local volunteer organisation, the Wild Wild Guardians, is aware of who are currently in overseas prisons for drug smuggling after being recruited from here.
Henry says the people who want to “export” their drugs are targeting places such as Geduld where they know that the people there are desperate for money.
He says he found that people don’t easily talk about this drug-mule recruitment or report it at the police and requested everyone with information to supply that to the police.
