AS SHE sits in a Chinese jail, staring at a possible death sentence, she has much to ponder: love and treachery, the lure of quick money and an evil trade.
The 36-year-old Singaporean was sent on a deadly trip by the man she loved.
A foreigner who won her heart with sweet words and got her to be a drug runner with promises of wealth.
She is not the only Singapore woman to fall into that trap.
But quite unusually among these drug mules, she married the man who was later to send her to her doom.
And all the while the same man was keeping a number of other girlfriends and managing what appears to have been a whole harem of drug couriers.
The 32-year-old Nigerian is at large and his whereabouts are not known.
Playboy
The couple met about four years ago, said an undercover officer of the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB).
The woman, Wati, was then an unemployed divorcee. And the man, Jackson, swept her off her feet. (These are not their real names. We are not revealing their identities because the case has not been concluded.)
Wati, who has a 5-year-old daughter from her previous marriage, fell for the Nigerian's charm.
And he was a slick operator - a playboy who seduced several local women here into being his girlfriends, possibly to act as drug mules, said the CNB officer, Assistant Superintendent (ASP) Alvin. (We are not revealing his real name because that would compromise anti-drug operations.)
He has been investigating several cases involving Singaporean drug mules recently. But the 17-year veteran with CNB had never seen one like this before.
ASP Alvin said it took a lot of skill for Jackson to manage his trafficking activities without any of the women knowing about the others.
Wati apparently had no clue about the other women in his life.
And when she was caught in China, she was left to fend for herself.
She was doing a drug run for Jackson and had landed there last month with 4kg of heroin in her baggage.
It is not known what the street value of the drugs is or how many drug runs she may have made for him during their marriage.
Unfortunately for Wati, she faces the death penalty if convicted. She may have loved Jackson, but to him, she is just a pawn.
ASP Alvin said: 'He did not treat the marriage seriously. These women mean nothing to these traffickers who can have multiple girlfriends at the same time. They are nothing but tools to them, to do their dirty jobs.'
He said Jackson's name had cropped up several times during investigations here.
CNB said most of the women targeted were Malays who mostly happened to have plump figures. Last year, the five drug mules caught were all Malay.
From his interviews with several drug mules, ASP Alvin said these women were generally sociable, open, and had entered into sexual relationships with West African men.
Most were desperate for money. Some had kids. And all were in love.
Still, these women should have known they were getting into something seriously illegal when they agreed to do the drug runs, going by what the CNB has revealed of their investigations.
ASP Alvin said: 'They said, 'I helped him because of love'. They got emotionally involved with these men. They were divorced, had family problems and here is someone calling them 'queen' and 'princess'.
'They felt safe with them.'
The CNB said that to hook these women into being couriers, the men provide tender loving care, as well as money and sex.
The first encounter might be at watering holes like pubs and entertainment outlets where Nigerian traffickers begin their hunt for vulnerable prey. Some use the Internet.
Said ASP Alvin: 'They (the traffickers) approach these women quite boldly. The first thing they say to a woman is 'Hello dear, can I be your boyfriend?'
'The next thing they say is 'I am attracted to you'.
'They are sweet talkers. And once the girls 'float', it becomes very difficult for them to think logically.'
It seems the men befriend the targets first, introduce them to their friends, get comfortable and assess if they are suitable to be couriers.
'The men would enter into a sexual relationship with these women to hook them. And once they are into this relationship, the West Africans will talk about their businesses and get the girls interested in their work,' ASP Alvin said.
Members of the drug syndicates, mostly Nigerians aged 20 to 30 years old, would first claim to be businessmen dealing in used cars or electronic goods.
While baiting the women, the men plan their escape route. When the women are caught, the traffickers disappear.
While none of the instigators had previously been caught, the CNB scored a breakthrough recently with the arrests of four West Africans along with three Singaporeans for drug offences.
The bureau had launched two operations, with information from the regional authorities. Two kilograms of a high-grade heroin was also seized.
S'pore women prized
Singaporeans are said to be prized as drug mules. Many countries do not require Singaporeans to have a visa. Add to this the Republic's tough stance against drugs. All this, plus the law-abiding image of Singaporeans, help them to get through checkpoints with relative ease.
At least 12 Singapore women are in various prisons since 2005, following their arrests at the airports of countries such as Japan, Britain, Argentina, China and Australia.
Some are already serving time, with one jailed in London in 2007 for 10 years, while the rest are awaiting sentencing.
The 12 Singapore women nabbed recently had no criminal record, were in their 20s or 30s, single and worked earlier in clerical, sales and service jobs.
All 12 were paid for their efforts. The women were promised between US$1,000 ($1,500) and US$4,000 for the drug runs. The going rate for international couriers is said to be US$5,000 or more for each 'assignment'.
Free plane tickets and hotel accommodation are thrown in.
Typically, the women had to fly from Singapore to another country to pick up the drug stash, and then on to a third to drop it off. Many of them carry the contraband in suitcases with false bottoms.
In one 2007 case, a woman in her early 20s was caught at Melbourne airport, after having met her Nigerian boyfriend in Bangkok. He had asked her to fly to Melbourne and pass the drugs to a third party.
She agreed - and swallowed 64 pellets of cocaine.
The couple had met three years earlier while she was shopping at Raffles City, where they had exchanged phone numbers and started dating.
This article was first published in The New Paper.
