 |
Drug Courier Scene By Annan Boodram |
This comes in the wake of recent comments from the British High Commission in Kingston that dozens of passengers on every flight from Jamaica to the UK are drug mules.
The claims, although disputed by UK Customs and Excise, have provoked an uproar in Britain. The Immigration Services' Union has called for visas to be imposed on all Jamaicans, not just those seeking to work or remain in the UK, saying this would make it easier to weed out drug couriers. This view was supported by former senior customs officer, David Raynes, who said that the situation was apparently so serious that "It was time to think the unthinkable, and the unthinkable is visas".
Conservative Party spokesman, Henry Macrory, told the Jamaica Observer that "some Conservative MPs have said that visas might be the answer to the drug mule problem". He added that Conservative MPs have previously expressed support for the idea after an outbreak of violence linked to Jamaican Yardie gangs in the mid-1990s.
Jamaican nationals, in common with most Commonwealth citizens, do not require visas to visit or study in the UK. However, visa regimes have been imposed on some Commonwealth countries, such as India and Pakistan, after massive numbers of people entered the UK as visitors and stayed to work.
Former Home Office minister, Anne Widdecombe, who is on the right-wing of the Conservative Party, said she did not necessarily support visas.
"The only thing that is a deterrent to a drug smuggler is the likelihood of being caught and getting a stiff sentence if you are caught," Widdecombe told the Observer.
"If someone is carrying drugs, the fact that they come over with a visa is neither here nor there".
Up to 30 passengers on every flight from Kingston to London are drug mules, according to the British High Commission in Kingston. UK's Deputy High Commissioner in Jamaica, Phil Sinkinson, ignited a political row by claiming that as many as one in 10 passengers on flights from Jamaica to Britain was attempting to smuggle drugs. In fact he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "It's very difficult to estimate how many passengers on board any flight have got cocaine hidden inside them, but I would think that estimate is probably on the low side."
The deputy head of the Jamaican narcotics police, Superintendent Glendon Wright, agreed saying there were "umpteen drug couriers travelling from Jamaica to the UK".
"The drug courier situation is the most available form of employment for most people in Jamaica today ...and if the economy continues as it is the situation will only get worse," he said.
British High Commission spokeswoman Mags Fenner said that the two recent incidents where dozens of Jamaicans were arrested on arrival in the UK were "completely average" as the flights had been targeted at random.
On 17 December 22 Jamaicans were charged with attempting to smuggle a Class A drug after disembarking from an Air Jamaica flight to Heathrow. Five days earlier, 16 Jamaicans were arrested on suspicion of swallowing cocaine packages after arriving in Gatwick on a British Airways flight. The arrests were made in a joint operation between British customs and Scotland Yard's Operation Trident which was set up to tackle Black on Black crime in South London, usually involving Jamaican Yardie gangs. But Fenner says "there was no special intelligence about the flights and not all the couriers were apprehended".
The drug mules, according to Superintendent Wright, are paid between £2,000 and £5,000 for each trip -- J$130,400 - J$335,000. This he said "was more money than most Jamaicans see in a lifetime" which was why so many people were prepared to take serious risks with their health by swallowing cocaine.
Lord Harris of the Metropolitan Police Authority told BBC's Today program, "As far as the drug barons are concerned, the women who do this are totally expendable - that's the really dreadful part of this trade".
And charity worker Bobby Sephestine of the British-based organization Hibiscus, said, "Their thinking is that even if three, four or five get caught on one flight others will get through - enough to make it worthwhile."
That attitude is passed on to the would-be mules, who hear of the few who make it through undetected and are persuaded that the risk is worth taking.
The couriers are typically single mothers with three or four children, often with further family responsibilities such as parents to support, according to Mr Sephestine.
The effects on families when mules are caught are "terrible", he goes on.
Freelance journalist Pat Roxborough who has covered many aspects of the drug smuggling trade said, "Most times when they are doing it the children and other family members are totally unaware what they've been up to.
"The shock is one thing but the kids are normally totally traumatised, and most times the care is just not put in place for them afterwards."
She says the recruitment system is complex and well developed - with even some church pastors recently implicated.
But the mules are not naïve, Ms Roxborough stresses, as they know the risks they face from being caught and the potentially fatal result of a swallowed package of cocaine bursting.
Not infrequently, a dreadful accident occurs mid-flight and the package bursts inside the victim.
Last October, a middle-aged woman died on a flight from Kingston, Jamaica to Heathrow when one of the 55 packages she had swallowed burst.
At about the same time, a 27-year-old man on a London-bound flight from Jamaica also died when pure cocaine seeped uncontrollably into his stomach.
At least 10 people had died after swallowing cocaine before they could board a flight to the UK. UK customs know of one Jamaican woman who died en route to Britain and say that at least 30 others were rushed to hospital after cocaine leaked into their stomachs. But they have no information on drug couriers who may have died in the UK after passing through Customs.
For example British police recently made arrangements to fly a Jamaican woman to the north western city of Liverpool to identify the body of a young female drug courier who was found in the Sefton Park area on Saturday, December 15. A 32-year-old illegal immigrant called Garfield Dennis was arrested for perverting the course of justice in connection with the case.
Dennis, whom the police believe is guilty of dumping the girl's body in the park after one of the packets of cocaine he allegedly induced her to smuggle into the country burst in her stomach, killing her, has pleaded not guilty to the charge, the conviction for which carries a 10-year prison sentence. He is due to make his second court appearance on March .
Those who swallow pellets of cocaine receive the most publicity but the smugglers are also using a wide variety of other techniques, some of them highly sophisticated.
In recent weeks cocaine has been found sewn into the seams of trousers, suspended in liquids, concealed in the soles of shoes and hidden in the handles of suitcases. On New Year's Day a woman was arrested at Norman Manley Airport with half a kilo of cocaine weaved into her hair.
The 'body packers' prepare themselves for their smuggling trips by swallowing whole grapes. The money they are paid is directly related to the number of pellets they are able to swallow. The average mule will carry around 30 but there have been cases where people have swallowed more than 120.
The pellets - each two inches long and half an inch wide - are often dipped in honey to ease their passage down the gullet. The mules will take tablets to induce constipation during the course of the trip. In earlier years the cocaine was stored in condoms but the fingers of surgical gloves, which are made of latex and are more sturdy, are the current material of choice. The cocaine is compressed and formed into pellets using a machine which supposedly ensures an airtight seal.
According to the narcotics police, the number of drug mules has increased substantially over the past few years and it is not just Jamaicans who are involved. The number of British couriers jailed in the Caribbean has risen substantially in recent years. Almost 100 are being held in Jamaica.
Wright said a survey last year had shown that 65 per cent of all drugs in the UK had come from Jamaica. Britain was a lucrative market for traffickers, he said, because of the lack of visa restrictions on Jamaicans and because the price of cocaine there was three times higher than in the United States or other European countries such as France. Cocaine, he said, sold for around US$30,000 a kilo in France or the US but US$90,000 in the UK.
The BBC spoke to Jamaican women at Cookham Wood Prison in Kent, who had been caught smuggling drugs into the UK.
Some said they were forced to carry the narcotics, while others said poverty drove them to it. Nearly all were single mothers, desperate for money.
One woman said she was told to swallow more than 160 condoms filled with cocaine, but gave up at 90.
Explaining what brought her to smuggle drugs, another woman said: "I have five kids and they need to go to school. Their father is in America and he sends no money. The only way to help them was to come to Britain with the drugs and get some money."
According to Mr Sephestine a concerted joint effort to combat the trade needs to be launched by both Britain and Jamaica.
"We need to implore both countries to implement a programme where people boarding flights are examined properly, with sensitive X-ray machines and full searches. If more mules were stopped in Jamaica, fewer would be tempted to go abroad, fewer would be tempted to try it at all."
"At the moment they are flooding the system and enough are passing through, or enough seemingly passing through, to make the risk seem viable to others."
Superintendent Gladstone Wright of the Narcotics Division of the Jamaican Constabulary said, "The couriers who would normally be travelling to America are unable to get their drugs through because security at the borders has become so tight. Cocaine is stockpiling in Jamaica and that is no good for the dealers - there is no viable market for the drug here. So it is all being diverted to Britain.'
"I think it's important that those in London look at the situation carefully at this time because of the situation in north America," said Mr. Sephestine.
Meanwhile Jamaica has acknowledged the problems of drug trafficking into the UK and called for an international effort to tackle the problem.
The Jamaican High Commissioner in London, David Muirhead said talks were taking place with the UK Government to install new equipment to detect drugs on flights to Britain - and detection equipment was already being installed at Jamaica's two airports.
"The Government of Jamaica recognises the serious problem of drug trafficking and has placed great emphasis upon and resources into tackling it," Mr Muirhead said in a statement.
"However drug trafficking is a problem of international proportions and must be dealt with through international co-operation in a comprehensive and integrated manner."
He pointed out that Jamaica itself did not produce cocaine, but the country was concerned at the "transhipment" of the drug through the island.