Car importers driving drugs into Uganda

Jun 01, 2013

In the recent past, drug trafficking in Uganda has been known to be done through Entebbe International Airport, where traffickers have been nabbed with pellets in their stomachs or drugs concealed in bags.But now traffickers are hiding drugs inside the parts of vehicles mainly imported from Jap

By Chris Kiwawulo

In the recent past, drug trafficking in Uganda has been known to be done through Entebbe International Airport, where traffickers have been nabbed with pellets in their stomachs or drugs concealed in bags.

But now traffickers are hiding drugs inside the parts of vehicles mainly imported from Japan through the Kenyan port of Mombasa.

According to an ex-employee of a car bond in Kampala,the drug dealers connive with imported vehicle owners or use their own cars. He says the drug racket has tentacles in Mombasa and that drugs are introduced the moment a vehicle is cleared at the East African port.

The drugs are sneaked into Uganda to supply a growing market here, while some go through to other destinations like the UK and the US.

A kilogramme of cocaine can go for up to $50,000 (sh130m) in the US, where it is on high demand.

Sources said the dealers are mostly young Asians disguised as car dealers, who have contacts in renowned and registered car bonds in the city and its suburbs. “One of the traffickers lives in Makindye division and drives to the car bond every morning to hang around. Occasionally, he travels to Mombasa. He drives a very expensive car and has several, expensive mobile phones,” the source said.

To disguise their activities, the traffickers usually import a few cars to make Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) customs officials less suspicious of their ulterior motive. At the border points of Malaba and Busia, Saturday Vision established that vehicles that come into Uganda are not checked for drugs.

Saturday Vision also observed that URA customs officials only check a car’s weight for tax reasons and to establish whether the engine and chassis numbers tally with what is on the import documents, leaving room for traffickers to bring in drugs.

The source, who was privy to the traffickers’ operations, revealed that drugs are concealed in car doors, seats and other compartments which are reportedly dismantled to hide the drugs, before being re-assembled.

“They usually bring in white powder stuffed in white polythene bags like those used to pack salt. The cars are usually driven to the dealers’ homes first, from where the drugs are offloaded, before they are driven back to the bond. They sell the drugs to only known customers. If the drugs are for export, they are mixed with other commodities and packed at the dealers’ homes,” he stated.

The source added that one Asian has been questioned about drugs at Entebbe Airport after a suspect named him as the owner of a parcel that was intercepted enroute to the UK. But with the help of colleagues, he reportedly pleaded innocent and managed to get off the hook, the source said.

Dicksons Kateshumbwa, the acting URA commissioner for customs, said they had no evidence of drug trafficking in imported vehicles. “There is site inspection of imported vehicles, especially at the Malaba border post. Besides, vehicles are inspected for contraband before they leave the bonds,” he noted.

He added: “Over time, no drugs have been found in imported vehicles. Only attempts by some importers to conceal vehicle parts like used tyres have been found and the parts have been recovered.”

However, Kateshumbwa urged members of the public with information about drug trafficking in imported vehicles to give it to them in confidence.

He explained that protecting society and the environment is part of URA’s role.

Kateshumbwa said Section 18 of the Customs Management Act mandates the tax body to ensure that prohibited and restricted goods are not imported into the country. He observed that narcotics were listed as prohibited goods under the Act.

Like URA, Police says no cases of traffickers using imported vehicles had been registered in the recent past.

Asan Kasingye of International Police (Interpol) Uganda, said although he had not heard about drug trafficking in imported cars, he could not rule it out, because the vice was growing every day.

“Previously, there would be one case of drug trafficking reported in a month. Today, two to three cases are reported every week,” he stated.

Kasingye said the trend has been that drugs are trafficked from Uganda to countries like UK, Malaysia, Japan and Thailand. He, however, acknowledged that Uganda was both a destination and a transit route for drugs nowadays.

He observed that if drugs were trafficked in imported vehicles, there was a likelihood that the traffickers were doing it at Mombasa.

Kasingye said when he recently visited the Interpol headquarters in Lyon, France, he discovered that Kenyans, Nigerians, Togolese, Rwandese and Tanzanians caught in drug trafficking were using Ugandan passports they got about five years ago. “Interpol officials from Hong Kong had a list of ‘Ugandans’ wanted over drug trafficking. When I looked at it, I discovered that only two or three were actual Ugandans,” he said.

Asked how foreigners got hold of Ugandan passports,Kasingye said there had been a loophole in the Immigrations office but it had been plugged.

Kasingye said a Nigerian was recently arrested in Malaysia with a Ugandan passport but when the Ugandan consulate officials in Malaysia subjected him to a test, he miserably failed. “He was given a form to fill and on it, he was required to provide his clan name. Instead, he filled that his clan was ‘Matooke’. He was arrested,” Kasingye narrated.

Herman Owomugisha, the Entebbe International Airport chief joint security officer, said there was need to for more punitive sentences.

“When drug traffickers are arrested, they go to court and plead guilty. They are then fined sh1m or less, which they pay and walk away to probably continue trafficking. But if the punishment was harsher, many would have abandoned it,” Owomugisha observed. In countries like China, the penalty is death.

Traffickers in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances are to suffer life imprisonment if a Bill, which is currently under consideration by the parliamentary defence committee, is passed.

Formula One not spared

In 1999, the Formula One authorities denied allegations that Grand Prix cars were being used to smuggle cocaine around the world. A British newspaper had claimed that customs officials were investigating allegations of a link between F1 and cocaine smuggling.

Quoting detectives and customs sources, the newspaper said customs officers were tipped off by an informant from the motor racing world and began monitoring the movement of F1 personnel and equipment in and out of Dover, UK. F1 cars race in about 12 different countries around the world in year. A single team usually consists of two drive cars, stand-ins and service cars.
 

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