KUALA LUMPUR: In pursuit of the good life, local women voluntarily become drug mules for international syndicates, and most of them are aware of what they carry.
Federal Narcotics CID director Datuk Mohd Noor Rashid Ibrahim said it was easy for local women facing financial problems to become victims of the syndicates to smuggle drugs abroad.
“More depressing, most of the drug mules know they are carrying drugs, and they voluntarily become mules to the syndicates to get tens of thousands of ringgit,” he told reporters at his office, here.
He said this was uncovered when on Feb 1, police detained a local woman who was a drug mule in Taman Orkid, Cheras and two Nigeria and Guinea nationals who were syndicate members.
When questioned, the woman admitted she knew she was being used as a drug mule. She revealed that she was also responsible for recruiting several new members to enable the syndicate to actively operate in several areas, especially the Klang Valley.
He said that appointing a local woman to recruit new members was a modus operandi of the syndicate, to continue using Malaysian women as their target to smuggle the synthethic drug, amphetamine.
Mohd Noor Rashid said 76 Malaysians were detained abroad for drug-related offences last year, and of the total, 49 were drug mules with half of them, women.
He said the 49 mules were detained in China (13), Indonesia (13), New Zealand (10), Thailand (five), Singapore (three) and one each in Australia, the Netherlands, Argentina, Macau and Pakistan. — Bernama