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Drug couriers break mould
By David Murray
May 01, 2005
From: The Sunday Mail (Qld)
DESPERATE gangs are preying on everyone from young nightclubbers to family friends in a search for fresh-faced "mules" to smuggle drugs through the nation's airports.
In a chilling insight into the growing threat posed to everyday Australians by crime syndicates, police have warned even the family barbecue may not be safe from gangs looking to recruit drug-runners.
The warning came as accused Bali drug mule Michael Czugaj admitted he and fellow Brisbane teenager Scott Rush were recruited in a Fortitude Valley nightclub by a man offering an overseas trip and instant cash.
"I just jumped straight in . . . they organised everything," he said.
Drug experts say gangs are being forced to search for "cleanskins" – couriers who do not fit the usual profiles of addicts or criminals – because police busts of large drug shipments have forced the importers to use more, smaller runs on flights into Australia.
The gangs are searching for a new generation of drug mules who are "young, dumb and looking for fun", according to the experts.
Nightclubs, pubs and live-music venues are being targeted – while some gangs are going as far as to prey on the extended family of friends.
"Sometimes it is family circles, family friends that are used," said Australian Federal Police head of international operations Mike Phelan.
Mules were being recruited from a "wide spectrum of society," he said.
Syndicates would use people they thought they could trust.
"That connection can come from anything, from previous criminal associations, secondary criminal associates, a friend of a friend," Mr Phelan said.
"The profile is difficult to fit. It's not always young people and it's not always people from a particularly low socio-economic background."
Brisbane 19-year-olds Rush and Czugaj face the death penalty in Bali with seven other Australians after being caught as part of gang trying to smuggle heroin.
Czugaj, arrested on April 17 at Denpasar airport, allegedly with 1.75kg of heroin strapped to his body, told Channel 9 he and Rush were recruited on a night out in Brisbane.
He said they were in a Fortitude Valley nightclub when they met a man who bought them drinks, and offered them $5000 and a trip to Bali.
"He started shouting us a few drinks," Czugaj said.
"The next minute he was asking us if we'd been overseas and stuff, and if we'd like to go, and, yeah, I just jumped straight in.
"It was half a week before I left the country. They organised everything – they got our passports and stuff like that."
Czugaj said he did not know what was in the packages that were strapped to his body.
"I didn't have a clue. I had no idea of what it was. They still didn't tell us," he said.
"I thought it might have been the ingredients to make drugs or something like that. I didn't think it was heroin. Stupid me."
Drug experts confirmed gangs were targeting a new generation of cleanskin smugglers.
"They haven't travelled, they are inexperienced and they might or might not have have been in a little bit of trouble," said National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre manager Paul Dillon.
"You have got to find someone who is stupid enough or naive enough to think they could get away with it or to think $10,000 or whatever they are getting paid is worth the risk."
Alcohol and Drug Foundation Queensland chief executive officer Bob Aldred said recruiters could look to casual drug-users – youngsters using only low-level drugs when partying on the weekend – as their pool of potential mules.
"It's that connection, it's the promises, it's who their friends are and it's the lure of easy money," he said.
"It's how criminal syndicates recruit people. They entice them with a lot of promises, they get them into a situation in which they are beholden to them and then they can threaten them."
Former Australian Federal Police intelligence director Sandy Gordon said there had been a return to a style of drug-running used in the 1970s and '80s.
"In the '90s what we had was very large importations mainly through sea freight by highly sophisticated syndicates. Those syndicates got broken up and what we've seen since then is a return to couriering," he said.
Pressure from peers, willingness to take risks and connection to low-level crime made some young people targets for recruitment.
"There is an incentive now for street-level dealers and people of that level to start to import on their own account," Mr Gordon said.
Mr Phelan confirmed there had been a "movement towards smaller seizures" over the past 18 months.
"That includes through the airports using the so-called scattergun approach," he said. "For example, on the same flight, four mules to different addresses in Australia."
Mr Gordon said the Australians arrested in Bali had been using the "Nigerian" or "scattergun" technique in which large numbers of mules were used in the hope that at least some would make it through.
"The mules never know who the organisers are. So the organisers can afford to lose a few mules without fearing they themselves are going to be arrested," Mr Gordon said.
The technique was named after Nigerians and other West Africans were arrested while attempting to take mass amounts of drugs into Britain in the 1980s and early 1990s.
An Australian Crime Commission report reveals that despite a massive drop in the amount of heroin seized in the past three years, there has been a rise in the number of people busted – further confirmation that mules are being used to carry small amounts.
"Customs reports that the largest number of detections was via air passenger/crew followed by detections by post," the report said.
From News.com.au
the horror the_horror! "DESPERATE gangs are preying on everyone from young nightclubbers to family friends in a search for fresh-faced "mules" to smuggle drugs through the nation's airports."
