Women Travellers Beware!

It was reported in Parliament that most drug mules are women. More accurately, young and pretty women. They are tricked into carrying bags containing drugs such as heroin, Ecstasy pills and other dangerous drugs into countries they have never been before. More often they are given free airline tickets to several destinations. Places that they may never heard of before. The mules would normally be given multi-destination tickets and would fly from one city to another, including Bangkok and other large cities in Latin American countries like Argentina, Chile and Peru before coming home, if they are lucky to come home at all.


Who would refuse free holiday trips? The only thing you have to do is bring along some luggage or boxes and deliver them to someone.

It was reported that eight Malaysians were currently serving jail sentences in Argentina and Venezuela, 10 in Peru, 21 in Brazil and one in Chile. They were all sentenced to jail after being found guilty of drug-related of­fences. A total of 1,490 Malaysians were currently serving their jail terms in foreign countries and 50% or 756 of them were due to drug trafficking.

The Foreign Ministry has sent a letter of appeal to the Singapore government last week  to plead for a young Sabahan on death row for drug trafficking. Two Malaysians, have been convicted of drug trafficking in China and Japan respectively, but have had their sentences reduced with Wisma Putra's help.

So young people, (that includes my children), please, please do not accept any strangers' requests to carry their luggage. Sometimes a pleasant looking stranger may try to strike a conversation only to request that you add a piece of luggage to yours when checking in at the airport. This is especially true if they see that you do not have much to carry. Do not accept anything from strangers even if they seem nice and religious. Crooks are great actors. One has to be extra careful. One wrong decision, even with good intentions could land you in death row in a foreign land.