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CAT AND MOUSE

 

FENLEY - A war is being waged in South Africa between the drug lords and the law. We investigate some of the methods used by the drug syndicates and the strategies used to counter them. And we ask who is winning this battle?

 

UPS: - VOICER - More and more South Africans are turning to drugs. And those lighting up or spiking up are getting younger and younger. With demand growing, the drug business has become a game of cat and mouse between the authorities and drug smugglers.

 

PRE-TITLE: CAT AND MOUSE

 

UPS: - VOICER - Crack cocaine use is growing faster than any other drug in South Africa with children as young as ten smoking it. Smoking or injecting heroine has increased by four hundred percent over the past eight years. But there's also an array of other drugs available on South Africa's streets.

 

UPS: - JONNY STEINBERG; AUTHOR/RESEARCHER - The biggest drug consumed in South Africa is mandrax and that used to be sourced primarily from the Asian sub continent and is now sourced primarily from China, Chinese producers have eclipsed um Indian and Pakistani producers mainly because they're managing to produce um enormous quantities very cheaply and ship them. There’s also a lot of evidence that mandrax or the precursors for mandrax from China is being bartered for abalone, so there’s an enormous market for South African abalone in Hong Kong and mainland China.

 

UPS: - VOICER - There is another drug that could become more popular than Mandrax. It's called crystal methamphetamine, better known as Tik. And it's taken South Africa's youth by storm. Hundreds of organised drug syndicates operate in South Africa. Experts say Nigerians run most of them but there are also Indian, Pakistani and Chinese syndicates. Police claim that last year alone, they closed down three hundred and ninety six syndicates involved in the drug trade.

 

UPS: - CAPTAIN DENNIS ADRIAO, SAPS - Its organised structures and international syndicates mostly, in terms of saying whether they're South Africans or foreigners it's mostly foreigners that we arrest.

 

UPS: - VOICER - Cindy Rodriguez was twenty years old when she was recruited by Nigerian drug lords in Hillbrow, Johannesburg. Syndicates use mules to smuggle drugs in and out of the country one of many methods. Cindy was a drug addict herself, and the lure of a quick buck was as tempting as a quick fix.

 

UPS: - CINDY RODRIGUEZ, EX DRUG MULE - They're very kind of cunning and deceiving and they make it sound and look a lot easier than what it actually is they very nice to you and they're full of promises and they help you out and of course you know like I said they took me shopping you know go buy clothes and everything so that you can play the part and ja they they fooled me

 

 UPS: - VOICER - A mule is at the bottom of the food chain in the drug smuggling world. And they're usually abandoned by their recruiters if they're caught. Cindy was arrested in Venezuela and got a nine year jail term when authorities found ten kilos of cocaine in her suitcase.

 

UPS: - CINDY RODRIGUEZ, EX MULE - It was double wrapped in the sides of the suitcase so there was material over, so they stripped the material and found duck tape with there was probably about four point five kilos just in that and then in baby powder in two containers of baby powder there were two bags and then in chocolates, in trays of chocolates individually wrapped there was a layer of chocolate then there was a layer of duck tape and underneath the duck tape there was cocaine.

 

UPS: -VOICER - Just like Cindy, Eugene Booyens' life went up in smoke when drug lords recruited him. He says he became a drug mule because he needed money for medical treatment for his daughter.

 

UPS: - EUGENE BOOYENS, EX MULE – It is difficult to explain I was picked up, I was put in a motel close to the airport the next morning this guy arrived, this Nigerian the exact same case that I had was then swapped with another case this is their trick when you fly carrying for them they make sure you are so late that you can never check what is in this bag.

 

UPS: - VOICER - Eugene was arrested when he arrived at the Osaka airport in Japan.

 

UPS: - EUGENE BOOYENS, EX MULE – And suddenly thy just blocked everybody off and they checked every bag. They have a little piece of paper in plastic that shows you marijuana and they’ve got an interpreter who asks if you have any of these substances with you and of course I said no. And I got nailed that was it and that was the last time I heard from my Nigerian friends. They're gone when you get caught you are a lost cause you failed they don't know you they don't want to know you why should they?

 

UPS: - VOICER - At least fifty seven South African drug mules are currently jailed in prisons like this one in Peru, in South America. Locals are serving lengthy prison sentences all over the world including Australia, Europe and the Far East.

 

UPS: - LUCY McDERMID, FOSADA - We found a large number in South America and it is on the steady increase. We were told officially that foreign affairs has eight hundred and ninety three prisoners on their records and those are the numbers that they are aware of that they have been informed of by their embassies. However I can guarantee you its over two thousand prisoners at the moment because we have at least thirty prisoners being incarcerated every single month across the world.

 

UPS: - VOICER - Apart from suitcases, drug syndicates use many other cunning methods to smuggle drugs past South Africa's authorities. This is perhaps the most ingenious smuggling method invented by drug syndicates. They get mules to actually carry the drugs in their stomachs in the form of “bullets” To make the bullets, drug traffickers fill condoms or the tips of latex drugs with drugs and then tie them securely with dental floss. The mules are trained to swallow large quantities of bullets, but it's a potentially fatal drug carrying method.

 

UPS: - JONNY STEINBERG, AUTHOR; RESEARCHER - If it had been possible to seal up a border there wouldn't be an international drug trade and there's an enormous international drug trade and one of the reasons is that you can't seal up a border, they all are more or less porous. You're doing very well if maybe three four percent of goods passing through a harbour or going through an airport are actually checked.

 

UPS: - ZAIN ABOOBAKER; SARS CUSTOMS ANTI-SMUGGLING The three percent of examination of goods. If you take into account the quantity or volume of cargo that comes through our ports it is a substantial amount based on the resources that we currently have in 2004 at the major ports of entry alone we had one point two million entries that were passed on imports only and another eight hundred thousand on exports as well which also have to be covered.

 

UPS: - VOICER - If authorities opened every piece of freight moving through our harbours, they would come to a standstill and so would the economy.

 

UPS: - JONNY STEINBERG; AUTHOR/RESEARCHER - The key to success is to make sure that you check the right three or four percent usually more like one or two percent and that's the cats job. The mouse's job is to ensure that your contraband is not in that three or four percent and the odds are always in favour of the mouse, if the mouse is smart its always not full proof um but always possible to get your contraband into that ninety seven, ninety eight percent that  isn't going to be checked.

 

UPS: - VOICER - So in the cat and mouse game, the odds seem to be stacked in favour of the mice, the drug syndicates. And they will use any means possible to ensure their contraband gets through.

 

UPS: - EUGENE BOOYENS, FORMER DRUG MULE - They just pay their way out of it all and they all married to white birds and they're here and they're here to stay whose going to take them out, whose going to do what, they've got the money to pay, they bribe themselves out of every corner…

 

UPS: - JONNY STEINBERG; AUTHOR/RESEARCHER - Any environment where valuable goods are moving through is a corruption sensitive environment, corruption is obviously a problem at a border post and any competent border control agency must have very serious internal monitoring measures in place.

 

UPS: - ZAIN ABOOBAKER; SARS CUSTOMS ANTI-SMUGGLING - We do not deny that corruption is a problem, SARS is taking a firm stance against corruption and I believe within SARS we are winning the battle against corruption.

 

UPS: - DENNIS ADRIAO, SAPS - We do have measures at the point of entry specifically to combat the corruption.

 

AD BREAK 1

 

 UPS: - VOICER - Chinese drug smugglers were dealt a massive blow last year when anti-smuggling teams intercepted one of the country's largest methaqualone imports ever. The consignment valued at seven hundred and fifty million rand was seized at Durban harbour. It's believed the shipment was en route to Mozambique to be further processed into mandrax tablets, for sale in South Africa.

 

UPS: -  SIPHO BAVUMA, CUSTOMS REGIONAL OPERATIONS MANAGER, DBN - We do a risk analysis and stop those containers which we think pose risk we also send out our uh anti smuggling teams to show up through visible policing and we also do stoppages across the country

 

UPS: -VOICER - Authorities can detain suspicious containers in a license depot and check the contents by hand. But an x-ray scanner machine at Durban harbour provides a quicker and easier way to check containers for contraband including drugs.

 

UPS: - SIPHO BAVUMA, CUSTOMS REGIONAL OPERATIONS MANAGER, DBN - Durban harbour could also be a hub for drug traffickers just like any other harbour could be. We have had some successes in catching some of the consignments of drugs in this harbour our anti-smuggling team is working furiously to ensure that this does not pilfer through into our society and into our country.

 

UPS: - VOICER - Africa's biggest and busiest harbour where trade has doubled in recent years has struggled to keep up with the volumes. There's also been an increase in the number of people moving through our land border posts in recent years. This makes South Africa's points of entry very attractive to syndicates.

 

UPS: - JONNY STEINBERG; AUTHOR/RESEARCHER - I don't think border control is ever particularly effective you can get good and bad border control um but in any system in the world its going to be possible to get past border control.

 

UPS: - DENNIS ADRIAO - We do have syndicates that are trying to smuggle drugs through our land border posts, and this is evident when we look at the type of seizures that we are doing um just at Lebombo border post recently we're looking at close to three hundred thousand rand worth of drugs that was seized there.

 

UPS: -VOICER - For authorities, the key to success lies in a formula  a set of indicators that is used to determine the risk of a flight passenger, or even sea cargo and air freight.

 

UPS: - CAPTAIN DENNIS ADRIAO, SAPS - We keep on um revising the technology and buying the latest type of technology to keep abreast of trends, we use standard um policing such as our police dogs, well trained dogs that sniff out drugs, obviously we have uniformed police officers that are specifically trained in profiling of um drug mules and so forth.

 

UPS: - ZAIN ABOOBAKER; SARS CUSTOMS ANTI-SMUGGLING Sound risk profiling is essential to customs operations. To assist us we're looking at obtaining advanced electronic information for both cargo and passengers which will give us sufficient time for us to do the necessary profiling identify the passengers we would like to examine.

 

UPS: - VOICER - Authorities must be doing something right in the cat and mouse game. They had several successes in addition to the Durban drug busts last year like this one at Johannesburg International Airport where they seized a large consignment of ecstasy tablets.

 

UPS: - ZAIN ABOOBAKER; SARS CUSTOMS ANTI-SMUGGLING In 2002 we had a total of one hundred and twenty six seizures, uh that equates to approximately two seizures per week, the same trend has continued throughout this financial year, um ja has accounted for sixty percent of seizures nationally this year currently we have had fifty four drug detections out of that four of them have been drug mules.

 

UPS: - VOICER - Authorities around the world share information to identify potential drug mules. Eugene was identified in Japan.

 

UPS: - EUGENE BOOYENS FORMER DRUG MLE - You can't deny it because your name is on the bag, um your fingerprints are all over the bag you carried it so how do you deny it you don't.

 

UPS: - CAPTAIN DENNIS ADRIAO; SAPS - Over and above the technology and all the other measures we've put in place drugs is a global problem so obviously we liaise with other law enforcement agencies throughout the world our police officers are trained specifically in specialised training at border points to combat drug smuggling.

 

UPS: - ZAIN ABOOBAKER; SARS CUSTOMS ANTI-SMUGGLING- In South Africa particularly we have long porous borders we have neighbouring countries which have their own economic problems we have forty five percent unemployment rate which makes South Africa a good place or a soft target for drug cartels.

 

UPS: - CAPTAIN DENNIS ADRIAO, SAPS - In the game of cat and mouse it might seem as though the drug smugglers have got the upper hand but I'm confident enough to say that we're gaining the upper hand if you look at the successes that we've had and that we've achieved.

 

UPS: - ZAIN ABOOBAKER; SARS CUSTOMS ANTI-SMUGGLING - In the game of cat and mouse between smugglers and law enforcement officials the odds are definitely in favour of the smugglers due to the high volumes of cargo that pass through the limited resources of the law enforcement agencies however those tables can be turned.

 

AD BREAK 2

 

UPS: -VOICER - But can South African authorities match up? And do they have sufficient resources at their disposal?

 

UPS: - JONNY STEINBERG; AUTHOR/RESEARCHER - You know that if you speak to anybody on the ground they'll say they'd like more and obviously everybody could always do with more resources.

 

UPS: - CAPTAIN DENNIS ADRIAO, SAPS - We believe that we're doing everything within our means to curb uh drug smuggling into South Africa. But obviously we need to continually re-assess the drug trends.

 

UPS: - ZAIN ABOOBAKER; SARS CUSTOMS ANTI-SMUGGLING - I don't think there will ever be enough resources to combat drug smuggling, law enforcement authorities can hope to control it to a large extent, but not totally stamp it out.

 

UPS: - VOICER - Customs is now in the process of expanding its resources, and will be acquiring more X-ray scanners which will be placed at strategic points around the country.

 

UPS: - ZAIN ABOOBAKER, SARS ANTI-SMUGGLING - In order to help us combat drug smuggling at Johannesburg International Airport we will be introducing cargo scanners as well as detector dog units these dogs are primarily trained to detect narcotics, either hidden in passengers baggage or hidden in cargo

 

UPS: - VOICER -Despite the state's war on drugs, abuse of illegal narcotics is on the increase drugs are still easily available on South Africa's streets. Experts say that if money is going to be invested in trying to restrict the drug trade, putting that money into border control may not necessarily be the best solution.

 

UPS: - JONNY STEINBERG, AUTHOR; RESEARCHER - Around the world there's a great deal of evidence that shows that if you invest money in trying to um decrease demand, particularly putting users in um in rehab programs you you're going to get a better return on your investment, you're going to shrink the market far better than putting in border control primarily because border control is by its nature imperfect.

 

 UPS: - NAOMI DUBE; SANCA, ALCOHOL AND DRUG STUDIES - I think the problem of drugs as with any other social problem is here to stay its about curbing it and the prevention and treatment of it and what we're finding here in Gauteng in particular with um we've had subsidy cuts from government twenty five percent um so its quite a problem because the people who need the treatment we cannot reach.

 

UPS: - CINDY MANCER, EX MULE AND DRUG ADDICT - You need to start educating you need to get into schools and you know a lot needs to be done. it all comes down to a choice you're going to make a choice eventually, drugs is something we're never going to be able to combat, it's always going to be around um and um ja the government just needs to get a lot stricter

 

UPS: - NAOMI DUBE; SANCA, ALCOHOL AND DRUG STUDIES - The government does need to priorities in terms of drug and substance abuse because if you look at it, people do need their fixes and to get their fixes they will commit crime, stats show that more than sixty percent of the criminals who were under the influence of some kind of substance when they committed the crime.

 

UPS: - CINDY MANCER, EX MULE AND DRUG ADDICT - Drugs ruin your life completely and ja its better not to even try to know of the consequences before hand its better not to try the first time because you wont have control over it, like with the heroine I was addicted before I knew it and in and out of rehab and on the streets and then the main the big fall was prison.

 

UPS: - VOICER - In the two-and-a-half-years that Cindy was in prison overseas, she recovered fully from her cocaine and heroin addiction. She also met a Venezuelan prison guard, the father of her daughter, Ruthie …  

 

 

UPS: - CINDY MANCER, EX MULE AND DRUG ADDICT - I've become a much better person, I've changed completely and um you know this experience has bettered me. I've got my daughter she helps me to keep myself above things which is good. I plan to have you know a very open relationship with my daughter and eventually she's probably going to ask questions of where you know her father and I met and everything and I'll be open and honest with her so that she can learn from my mistakes.

 

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