Angelo Izama
23 March 2008
Cocaine and heroin; two of the world's most addictive narcotic drugs are increasingly being smuggled into western markets from Uganda, a state of affairs that could hurt Uganda's standing in the world community.
To do the dirty job, however, rather than use Ugandans and other Africans to carry the illegal but lucrative cargo as has previously been the case, a sophisticated drug ring is recruiting young white men and women from bars and other popular hangouts mainly in Kampala.
This change of tactics has occurred right under the noses of Ugandan authorities. Our sources, who declined to be named for fear of being harmed by the traffickers, say the ring involves Ugandan and Kenyan traffickers. It targets party-going backpackers (low budget tourists) or simply desperate foreign travellers who are passing through Uganda and want to make some easy money.
This is mainly because a white student with a clean foreign passport travelling from Uganda attracts less suspicion at airports abroad. In any case, airport security and immigration personnel at Entebbe International Airport would hardly suspect a laptop-carrying white man or woman to be leaving Uganda with narcotics.
And this was exactly the case with Ms Kim Salter, before her 'luck' ran out and she was arrested in Spain in November 2007 with five kilos of high grade cocaine. A kilo of the stuff can fetch as much as $120,000 (approximately Shs200 million). She is now facing at least 10 years in jail.
Kim, as her friends call her, is an Australian woman in her mid-20s. She came to Uganda seeking adventure. After a few months on the party scene in Kampala she grew desperate.
"She was sitting at Café Pap [a coffee shop on Parliament Avenue] when she was approached for recruitment," a friend of hers who spoke to Sunday Monitor on condition of anonymity, recalled.
Kim, like others before her, was told that if she accepted she would be enjoying all-expenses-paid trips just to "carry information". She accepted.
"She was also earning at least $3,000 per trip. Sleeping at a top hotel, with meals and entertainment costs paid and travelling to exotic cities was a sweet deal. She fell for it," the friend added.
Soon, Kim was "picking up frequent flier miles" travelling to destinations in West Africa, Europe and South America.
Her friends said she also frequently travelled to Nairobi and Mombasa where the drug ring had operations.
"She was convinced that she was not carrying anything illegal because she had been told she was moving information related to the government," a source familiar with Kim's situation said.
Kim at one point suspected she was involved in something illegal. She told friends at one point that she suspected she was also carrying diamonds.
Her employers gave her a laptop case "with a secret compartment" inside of which the drugs were stored. Because the drugs were of very high quality it made economic sense to transport them by air to Europe.
"They then cut the drugs and mix it with lower quality versions for sale [in Europe]," a source involved with the trade said.
Sunday Monitor agreed not to name the sources because of the illegality of trafficking drugs and other associated risks.
According to one source, the recruiters sometimes told potential 'mules' (the term sometimes used to refer to drug couriers) that they would become part of "Global Marketing", a firm purported to be seeking investment opportunities abroad. This clearly contradicted the claim of "moving secret government information" with which they lured other unsuspecting victims.
"They always had a story. Global Marketing meant you would have a meeting say in London with investors. At one point I was told that I was transporting ARV's [anti-retroviral HIV/Aids drugs] because there was an issue about them being smuggled in and out of Uganda," the source, a former mule, said.
This particular source said they were approached and recruited at Bubbles O'Leary, a popular Irish bar patronised by Kampala's expatriate community and some of Kampala's upwardly mobile socialites.
"They hang around places where expatriates go," the source said. However, the use of rastas or young dreadlocked men who frequent bars and clubs, and hang out with backpackers and other tourists is also becoming popular.
Additionally, one can buy drugs in bars in Kansanga and Nakasero in Kampala, various sources said. Small quantities for local consumers with a fix going for around $50-100 are now available. Suppliers for local clients can be reached through an elaborate referral system and often through mobile phones.
"They can drive to your location at any time of the night if you want it. They are nice guys," a self-confessed user told this reporter.
Before her arrest in Spain, Kim was leading the good life.
"The first two weeks were hell. I was crippled with grief," she wrote to her friends from her jail cell.
Not surprisingly, her recruiters do not want to have anything to do with her now. But possibly what is more troubling is the fact that the Ugandan authorities have up to now not bothered to interview her about her connections in order to learn something about the drug trafficking trade that is flourishing in Kampala.
So the drug ring continues untouched. In the course of our investigations for this story, Sunday Monitor was made aware of one British male student who was approached. He turned down a similar deal after smelling a rat but also because Kim's story has been doing the rounds.
The person who made the proposition, and whose name keeps coming up in the case of Kim and others, calls himself Richard Kilonzo -- a Kenyan-sounding name that may very well be an alias.
Kilonzo is a recruiter who seeks possible mules. To those who have met him, he comes across as a well-spoken and educated individual.
Sunday Monitor found out that besides being a transit point for high grade narcotics, Uganda is also an emerging market with local users growing in numbers.
The large expatriate community as well as richer Ugandans who are able to buy and use drugs in relative safety -- because the police are not cracking down on narcotics on the one hand, but also because anti-narcotics activities tend to be focused mainly on trying to stop the growing and use of marijuana, are fanning the trade.
"The narcotics division was once vibrant especially with foreign assistance. We had offices in all districts and every station had an officer dealing with narcotics," said Mr Edward Ochom, the police commander for Kampala Extra.
Times have changed however.
Violent crime associated with marijuana use in most of Kampala's crowded suburbs in on the increase.
The solution, Mr Ochom suggested, lies in enacting tougher laws to deal with trafficking. The government also has to commit more resources to anti-drugs law enforcement.
At Police headquarters, the Assistant Inspector General of Police in charge of the Criminal Investigations Directorate, Okoth Ochola, says the police hopes to address the situation by setting up a new Crime Intelligence Division. Mr Elly Womanya, who is also in charge of the anti-terrorism operations will be its head.
Mr Ochola said this division will provide urgently needed information about criminal activities.
"At the East Africa level we have looked at how methods of narcotics trafficking, a covert activity, keep changing so as to beat law enforcement," he said.
According to the force's Narcotics Unit, mules have again began using briefcases with collapsible bottoms and laptop bags - a practice that had been abandoned after 2006 recorded the highest number of arrests of traffickers who had swallowed pellets of cocaine in plastic containers.
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