Lloyd Williams
Senior Associate Editor

The following is the second of a three-part interview of a drug mule who made six trips to England in a 14-month period, smuggling cocaine in her stomach.

TRIP TWO

Condoms such as these are packed with drugs and carried in the various orifices of the body.

"TWO WEEKS time and they asked me if I would like to go back again. Some people would look at it as if I am craven (greedy) but I don't look at it as craven, because I can do it; if I sit in Jamaica I don't have nothing." Lucky said she regarded the supplier's organisation "as proper", so she decided to go on another cocaine-smuggling trip to England.

Aboard the plane, she met a girl she had known before, "but is 'push-up' she have (meaning that the cocaine was inserted in the vagina). "She was giving pure problems so I tried to avoid her because when they know you are carrying (cocaine) too and they get busted, they bust on you too. I know the airport so when we landed I ran, leaving her alone; I was the first person in the immigration room.

"I got through quick and everything but when I was going around the corner (in the airport) they (customs officers) stop me." Here, she cautions that when you get through at the immigration desk at the front "and you are going round the corner, don't bother to feel that you are safe."

"They said, 'May I have a body search, please?' That time me a smile. You can't make them know that you are nervous because a 'psyches' them a use on you. I said, 'Yes, go ahead.'" They read her her rights and she signed her name as having been advised of her rights.

Lucky said two women took her into a room and strip-searched her, but they found nothing. They searched her luggage minutely and came up dry. Still suspicious, one examiner told Lucky they felt she still had something inside her and invited her to do a urine test. They asked her whether she wanted to have the services of a solicitor or to speak with the persons who had come to meet her. She declined. The Chief Customs Officer had to sign a paper to decide whether she should take a urine test or be X-rayed. They took her into a room. "You had to go up a staircase to go on the toilet which is transparent and it had this big transparent hose that goes down into a sink. A slapping sound made by an examiner's latex glove while she was putting it on, frightened Lucky but she remained calm but she couldn't urinate.

They took her into another room and gave her a blue book with the rights and rules of British customs and immigration laws that she was subject to.

"I pushed away the book. They gave me 10 cups of water then three cups of hot tea. It was around the time of the Wimbledon tennis championships and they got to discussing the Williams sisters. They asked her if she liked tennis and she told them she did." Lucky eventually urinated.

While they went away with the urine to analyse it, she took out her small Bible and tried to read it. She couldn't concentrate because she was fretting; but she wasn't showing it. "My mind was on my suffering, and my parents and my children". She explained that she had opted to read her Bible rather than go to the obeahman to whom the person who recruited her in Jamaica offered to take her for a "bath or wash off for protection" before her first cocaine flight. Lucky relates the case of a drug mule who was arrested at the Norman Manley International Airport, east Kingston, and later imprisoned because the police were attracted to her by the "obeah oils" reeking from her body.) When the examiner came back with the result of the urine test, Lucky asked if she could have something to eat. The woman said, "No", but Lucky said she felt full instantly as the result of the urine test was negative! She was free to leave for her flight to Manchester, five hours after being detained to be searched and given a urine test.

In Manchester, she was met by the fellows the cocaine was sent to. She began expelling the pellets that night, and by morning, had completed the delivery "but I didn't get any pay. Three days come and I still didn't get any pay. I had to go to the bookie (betting shop) and demand my money. I had to get mad and cuss up bad words and they took me to the male toilet where they gave me £1,500. I should have got £3,000. I was vexed. I said to them, 'You robbed me the first time and you are robbing me again?' I told them God wasn't sleeping. They gave me £500 more.

Lucky figured she had actually swallowed 112 cocaine pellets again but her receivers told her it was only 92 and that was what they were paying her for. "I know they were robbing me though but I didn't want any further quarrel with them because I didn't want them to kill me. Some people don't get none (pay)."

"The police held one of the youth while he was 'licking shot' on the road. He gave the house where I was staying as his bail address but he didn't live there. One morning while I was asleep, the police raided the place with dogs." Lucky is impressed by the London police. The police put her "and a youth" who also smuggled cocaine from Jamaica in a room. She said he does it because he likes England and wants to stay there. She doesn't like England. "Me no see any levity in England because England is hard (a place to live). So I rather take my money and bring it back here and see if I can do something. I was shopping for things to take home (to Jamaica) as usual. The police took away £1,000 from me. England police are highly trained. They use intelligence on you. Everything you say they write down, read it back to you and you sign it if it is correct. They do everything proper. They have manners."

Lucky returned to Jamaica at the end of the two weeks which she was allowed to stay in England. Here, she bought other household appliances and furniture and outfitted her children for school. Her money ran out and it was back to the hand-to-mouth existence again but she felt comfortable and her house no longer leaked.

Part III
Lucky figured she had actually swallowed 112 cocaine pellets again but her receivers told her it was only 92 and that was what they were paying her for.

Part 1 | 2 | 3