View ImageA Tanzanian man who was arrested at Johannesburg Airport on Friday with a “very extended” stomach in which 140 cocaine balls were hidden, was still battling on Wednesday afternoon to pass all the cocaine balls.
He has been using a special toilet at the offices of the police narcotics bureau at the airport since Friday afternoon in an attempt to pass the evidence worth about R200 000. The estimated weight of the cocaine is 850g.
The man, who arrived on a flight from Dubai, initially refused to take laxatives, but late on Wednesday afternoon, he was very tired and decided to take them.
Unit commander superintendent Moses Setlhare explained on Wednesday that no suspect could be forced to take laxatives, even if X-rays had shown that the suspect had banned substances in his stomach.
“However, we explain to each person who is caught like this that if only one of the balls bursts in his stomach, the results can be fatal. He can die of a drug overdose in minutes. The choice to use a laxative remains his.
“If a ball bursts and the person’s life is threatened, we can’t force them to accept medical assistance and have the cocaine removed during an operation.
“The toilet, built higher than the basin, is linked to the basin through a thick sewage pipe and each drop flushed down the toilet flows through the basin where a sieve stops anything that should not wash away.
“The accused doesn’t have to remain on the toilet all the time, but can move around in the room and the adjacent office. If nature calls, the toilet is at hand.”
Special training to swallow
The balls are then washed with soap and chemicals in another basin, dried and packed into special plastic bags by the suspect before being sent to the police’s forensic laboratories.
“A policeman supervises the suspect at all times. There is also a shower in the bathroom that the suspect can use whenever he wants, but still under the watchful eye of the police.
To form the cocaine balls, the pure cocaine powder – and sometimes heroin – is wrapped in a piece of plastic and then wrapped in a bullet shape with adhesive tape to ensure that it does not leak.
It is then wrapped in foil, condoms or the fingers of surgical gloves and again wrapped with adhesive tape.
Setlhare said: “The courier undergoes special training where he is taught how to swallow the balls; something not everyone is cut out for. The balls are dipped in olive oil and the swallowing starts.
“The drug lord then sends the courier and his valuable cargo on a mission and the courier is paid a measly amount, if anything, for his trouble.”
The longest it has taken any courier to pass all the evidence, was 10 days when one of the balls was stuck in the courier’s stomach and he refused to allow an operation.
The most balls found in one person’s stomach in South Africa was 187. The first cocaine swallowers to use this method in South Africa were arrested at an airport in 1994.
http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/Gauteng/0,1113,2-7-829_1259573,00.html
Replies
I heard a story the other day about a farm hand in wyoming a number of years ago who was driving one of those big 4-wheel-drive 8-wheel tractors across the back yard of the farm house. One set of wheels dropped through the cover over the septic tank. The old farmer himself was taking a dump at the time and the back pressure blew him off the toilet seat and left him standing in about 3 feet of previous "dumps."
oh man that's hilarious!Half of good living is staying out of bad situations.
Forget the primal scream, just Roar!
It would make you "gunshy" of sittin on the pot reading the last issue of FHB for a while. Wish those pages were a bit softer for the outhouse.