I WAS A SOUTH AFRICAN DRUG MULE

When people say that Cape Town has the highest murder rate in the world, they really mean the Cape Flats, and when they say the Cape Flats, they're generally visualizing Manenberg. The streets are barely paved. The people are barely there. On the last day of the decade, a Manenbergian named Jacqueline Jansen handed us a photocopied missing poster for her daughter.

"Her children live with me. She normally comes back to see them at Christmas. But I haven't seen her since the 19th of December." Jacqueline's daughter was last seen at a shebeen in Nyanga. Jacqueline thinks her boyfriend may have murdered her. "They took him in, but the police can only hold him for so long. And he wouldn't tell them anything. The people say she's dead. But, you know how it is--it's difficult to get the blacks to tell you things."

In 2005, her five-year-old granddaughter went missing. She was never seen again. At the time, there were widely published allegations that the family had sold the child for R500 (about $100). But Jacqueline was already in prison then, having been caught on her first mission as an intercontinental drug mule.

She lifted up her top to reveal the long pink scar that runs vertically up her belly and spoke haltingly about how in 2002 she thought she'd found the answer to all her money worries.

Vice: What sort of drugs were you mule-ing?
Jacqueline Jansen: It was cocaine. I was caught at Johannesburg airport trying to re-enter the country from Brazil. The police were waiting for me. They took me to the hospital to be X-rayed and that's how they found it. They saw that one of the bags had gotten lodged in a way so that the others couldn't come out, so I had to have all of it cut out.

Was it your first time doing this?
It was the first time I'd ever done a drugs one. I'd taken a parcel of cash out from the Nige-ees to Mauritius a couple of months earlier. That time I wasn't caught. The Nige-ees have got people all over the world, you know.

How much money was there? Did you have a look?
I only saw the outside--a stack of hundred dollar bills like a phone directory.

How much money did they offer you?
To take the drugs--R20,000 [about $4,000]. To ship the money, I just got R10,000.

Were you worried about ingesting all those drugs?
No, the guy who prepared me knews what he was doing. It was safe.

How much did you have to swallow?
A kilo.

How big were the baggies?
It was about half of your finger.

How were they planning on getting the cocaine back after that?
You just wait for them to come out the other end.

Had you ever been out of the country before, apart from Mauritius?
No.

How long did you have to stay in Brazil before you went back?
I was there for a month.

What did you do for that month?
They give you a hotel, and then I went round on the train, which was nice.

Was it a good hotel?
It was very nice.

What did you think of Brazil?
It's a lot like Cape Town. There's lots of different sorts of peoples there.

Did you feel self-conscious, coming through the airport?
No. They give you everything so that you look right. They took me up to Home Affairs and got me a new passport and they buy you the clothes and toiletries, luggage… they even give you pocket money for when you are there. They make you look fancy, you know?

How did you get into mule-ing in the first place?
It was through a friend of mine. She was also from Manenberg, and she introduced me to the Nige-ees. But she didn't have kids to feed. She just needed the money because she was using drugs. She also got caught--but it was in Brazil, before she boarded her flight. So she piemped [snitched] me to the police.

Why?
Jealousy, man. She was jealous of me, and of my life, so she piemped me out. But she's dead now. She died in jail in Brazil.

What did she die of?
They said she caught some kind of germ or something. But I think the Nige-ees killed her because she knew too much.

Were the Nigerians there to meet you at the airport when the cops caught you?
The Nige-ees were there also--I could see them across the building--but as soon as they saw the police, they just melted away.

Have you heard from them since?
No.

Would you say if you had?
No.

What were you sentenced to?
I was sentenced to 12 years. But four of that was suspended. So I got out after 5 years, in 2007. My parole finishes in 2011.

GAVIN HAYNES