Smugglers risking their lives, say UK cops

LONDON: JAMAICANS ATTEMPTING to smuggle cocaine into Britain are putting their lives in more danger than they think. The belief that if they get caught it will simply mean doing short jail time before being sent home is far from reality.

British police statistics reveal that over the past year at least three persons died and many more seriously injured while attempting to smuggle the drug in their bodies. There are two methods used to carry the illegal substance. The method of 'swallowing' packets of cocaine wrapped in condoms is the most popular with some persons known to have ingested up to 150 packets at a time.

The other method of 'insertion' is usually when women carry the drug in their vagina or men in their rectum, sometimes up to 30 at a time. As statistics revealed, this is an extremely dangerous practice. During 2001, British Customs officers rushed 31 people to hospital from the airport after the packets broke and began to leak inside them. They are all lucky to be alive today. In October 2001, a 30-year-old woman died on board an airline coming into Heathrow from Kingston. During a post-mortem examination, she was found to have swallowed 55 packets of cocaine, one of which had burst causing a massive overdose in her system. Two other persons suffered similar fate earlier in the year.

• Main
• Saga of a drug mule
• Saga of a Jamaican drug mule ­ Part II
• Saga of a Jamaican drug mule ­ Part III
• Smugglers risking their lives, say UK cops
  
• I was misled, says prisoner
  
• Yardie crime, drugs force UK change
• Visa scare

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