Young British women, still in their teens, are being recruited as mules on drug smuggling routes from Africa, customs officials believe. Investigators fear recent cases may be evidence of much wider activity by a large-scale smuggling syndicate.
The latest teenager to be convicted is 19-year-old Carly Plunkett, who was stopped at London-Gatwick airport on her way back to the UK from Gambia with £250,000 (US$460,000) of cocaine in her suitcase. She received a five-and-a-half year sentence in May.
Two north London teenagers, Yasemin Vatansever and Yetunde Diya, returned to Britain last month after serving a year in jail in Ghana. They had been caught at Accra airport carrying laptop bags containing £300,000 of cocaine.
In each case, the young women had been groomed as smugglers with promises of holidays, expensive meals, clothes and jewelry. Plane tickets for the three were booked with the same agents, by the same man.
Vatansever and Diya had told their families that they were going on a school trip to France. Plunkett’s parents thought she had gone for a break in Tenerife.
CRIME RING
A source close to the investigations said: “This is the same gang — there are an awful lot of connections between the two.”
“The plane tickets were booked at the same north London travel agents and by a man using the same name and with the same credit card,” the source said. “This gang circles around potential couriers, sizing them up — these three girls could be the tip of the iceberg.”
But the source also said that “although plane tickets have been bought, inoculations organized and hotel accommodation in west Africa arranged, the three mules were only asked to return with a package. Because they do not explicitly mention class A drugs the authorities are finding it difficult to prove a conspiracy.”
Vatansever and Diya were 16 when they were caught.
Ghanaian authorities said the teens had been promised £3,000 each as payment for taking the drugs to the UK.
Plunkett was promised £1,000 to bring some “weed” home, her father said.
The former waitress, who had no previous convictions, was arrested days before her 18th birthday.
GROOMING
John Plunkett said his daughter had been groomed by “friends” she had met just months before her arrest. Plunkett, a railway engineer from Eastbourne, on the south coast of England, described how his daughter had been groomed by the gang.
“They buy them things and offer them holidays, hairdos, clothes and nights out. What girl wouldn’t want that?” he said.
“But there’s a price, there’s always a price to pay. These people can send 10 girls out there at a cost of £20,000. If one gets through they make more than £100,000 profit,” he said.
Carly Plunkett told customs investigators that she had been approached by a man from London who had offered to take her to a club in the capital; he then showered her with gifts and finally offered her a holiday in Gambia, saying she could take along a female friend.
ISOLATED
John Plunkett said that on arrival in Gambia his daughter was booked into a dirty hotel, where she remained for four days before being approached by a Gambian man.
“He took her to another hotel where he was staying and said to her: ‘if you want to get back to England you will be taking this weed with you and you’ll get £1,000.’ That was the only way she was going to get back, he told her,” he said.
The 51-year-old described how he had watched his daughter being led to the cells after being sentenced.
“We were given one minute together before the hearing, separated by a Perspex screen. We were both crying our hearts out. She kept saying: ‘I’m sorry Dad, I’m so sorry Dad.’”
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