HOW K'LA HAS BECOME A DRUG LORD'S PARADISE

Besides being a transit point for high grade narcotics, Uganda is
also an emerging market with local users growing in numbers, sources say

Cocaine and heroin; two of the world's most addictive narcotic drugs
are increasingly being smuggled into western markets from Uganda, a
state of affairs that could hurt Uganda's standing in the world community.

To do the dirty job, however, rather than use Ugandans and other
Africans to carry the illegal but lucrative cargo as has previously
been the case, a sophisticated drug ring is recruiting young white
men and women from bars and other popular hangouts mainly in Kampala.

This change of tactics has occurred right under the noses of Ugandan
authorities. Our sources, who declined to be named for fear of being
harmed by the traffickers, say the ring involves Ugandan and Kenyan
traffickers. It targets party-going backpackers (low budget tourists)
or simply desperate foreign travellers who are passing through Uganda
and want to make some easy money.

This is mainly because a white student with a clean foreign passport
travelling from Uganda attracts less suspicion at airports abroad. In
any case, airport security and immigration personnel at Entebbe
International Airport would hardly suspect a laptop-carrying white
man or woman to be leaving Uganda with narcotics.

And this was exactly the case with Ms Kim Salter, before her 'luck'
ran out and she was arrested in Spain in November 2007 with five
kilos of high grade cocaine. A kilo of the stuff can fetch as much as
$120,000 (approximately Shs200 million). She is now facing at least
10 years in jail.

Kim, as her friends call her, is an Australian woman in her mid-20s.
She came to Uganda seeking adventure. After a few months on the party
scene in Kampala she grew desperate.

"She was sitting at Cafe Pap [a coffee shop on Parliament Avenue]
when she was approached for recruitment," a friend of hers who spoke
to Sunday Monitor on condition of anonymity, recalled. Kim, like
others before her, was told that if she accepted she would be
enjoying all-expenses-paid trips just to "carry information". She accepted.

"She was also earning at least $3,000 per trip. Sleeping at a top
hotel, with meals and entertainment costs paid and travelling to
exotic cities was a sweet deal. She fell for it," the friend added.
Soon, Kim was "picking up frequent flier miles" travelling to
destinations in West Africa, Europe and South America.

Her friends said she also frequently travelled to Nairobi and Mombasa
where the drug ring had operations.

"She was convinced that she was not carrying anything illegal because
she had been told she was moving information related to the
government," a source familiar with Kim's situation said. Kim at one
point suspected she was involved in something illegal. She told
friends at one point that she suspected she was also carrying diamonds.

Her employers gave her a laptop case "with a secret compartment"
inside of which the drugs were stored. Because the drugs were of very
high quality it made economic sense to transport them by air to Europe.

"They then cut the drugs and mix it with lower quality versions for
sale [in Europe]," a source involved with the trade said.

Sunday Monitor agreed not to name the sources because of the
illegality of trafficking drugs and other associated risks.

According to one source, the recruiters sometimes told potential
'mules' (the term sometimes used to refer to drug couriers) that
they would become part of "Global Marketing", a firm purported to be
seeking investment opportunities abroad. This clearly contradicted
the claim of "moving secret government information" with which they
lured other unsuspecting victims.

"They always had a story. Global Marketing meant you would have a
meeting say in London with investors. At one point I was told that I
was transporting ARV's [anti-retroviral HIV/Aids drugs] because there
was an issue about them being smuggled in and out of Uganda," the
source, a former mule, said.

This particular source said they were approached and recruited at
Bubbles O'Leary, a popular Irish bar patronised by Kampala's
expatriate community and some of Kampala's upwardly mobile socialites.

"They hang around places where expatriates go," the source said.
However, the use of rastas or young dreadlocked men who frequent bars
and clubs, and hang out with backpackers and other tourists is also
becoming popular.

Additionally, one can buy drugs in bars in Kansanga and Nakasero in
Kampala, various sources said. Small quantities for local consumers
with a fix going for around $50-100 are now available. Suppliers for
local clients can be reached through an elaborate referral system and
often through mobile phones.

"They can drive to your location at any time of the night if you want
it. They are nice guys," a self-confessed user told this reporter.

Before her arrest in Spain, Kim was leading the good life.

"The first two weeks were hell. I was crippled with grief," she wrote
to her friends from her jail cell.

Not surprisingly, her recruiters do not want to have anything to do
with her now. But possibly what is more troubling is the fact that
the Ugandan authorities have up to now not bothered to interview her
about her connections in order to learn something about the drug
trafficking trade that is flourishing in Kampala.

So the drug ring continues untouched. In the course of our
investigations for this story, Sunday Monitor was made aware of one
British male student who was approached. He turned down a similar
deal after smelling a rat but also because Kim's story has been doing
the rounds.

The person who made the proposition, and whose name keeps coming up
in the case of Kim and others, calls himself Richard Kilonzo -- a
Kenyan-sounding name that may very well be an alias. Kilonzo is a
recruiter who seeks possible mules. To those who have met him, he
comes across as a well-spoken and educated individual.

Sunday Monitor found out that besides being a transit point for high
grade narcotics, Uganda is also an emerging market with local users
growing in numbers.

The large expatriate community as well as richer Ugandans who are
able to buy and use drugs in relative safety -- because the police
are not cracking down on narcotics on the one hand, but also because
anti-narcotics activities tend to be focused mainly on trying to stop
the growing and use of marijuana, are fanning the trade.

"The narcotics division was once vibrant especially with foreign
assistance. We had offices in all districts and every station had an
officer dealing with narcotics," said Mr Edward Ochom, the police
commander for Kampala Extra.

Times have changed however.

Violent crime associated with marijuana use in most of Kampala's
crowded suburbs in on the increase.

The solution, Mr Ochom suggested, lies in enacting tougher laws to
deal with trafficking. The government also has to commit more
resources to anti-drugs law enforcement.

At Police headquarters, the Assistant Inspector General of Police in
charge of the Criminal Investigations Directorate, Okoth Ochola, says
the police hopes to address the situation by setting up a new Crime
Intelligence Division. Mr Elly Womanya, who is also in charge of the
anti-terrorism operations will be its head.

Mr Ochola said this division will provide urgently needed information
about criminal activities.

"At the East Africa level we have looked at how methods of narcotics
trafficking, a covert activity, keep changing so as to beat law
enforcement," he said.

According to the force's Narcotics Unit, mules have again began using
briefcases with collapsible bottoms and laptop bags - a practice that
had been abandoned after 2006 recorded the highest number of arrests
of traffickers who had swallowed pellets of cocaine in plastic containers.

Apparently this is because sniffer dogs that would easily detect
narcotics are used in the large luggage section of our airport. And
so laptop cases or briefcases slip through security undetected.

Mostly, however, the police insist that the problem is exacerbated by
Uganda's weak immigration controls. This laxity has been exploited by
criminal elements.

For instance, "if you ask Immigration for a list of aliens in Uganda
and their addresses they do not have it," Mr Ochola said.

Kim Slater is not the only trafficker with Ugandan connections in a
foreign jail. Griet Onsea, the former companion of musician Jose
Chameleone, and her friend Harry Lum were arrested at Norwich Airport
in the United Kingdom with cocaine worth a million pounds in August 2006.

It is clear then that her foreign nationality (she is Belgian) and
involvement in the music industry here follows the same pattern of a
socially active and party-hopping white person trafficking in drugs.
It was not disclosed then from where Ms Onsea's cocaine originated
but Kampala was likely in the picture.

In June 2007, Ms Rose Birungi, an official of Tooro Kingdom
associated with Gen. Salim Saleh told Sunday Monitor she had been set
up by a drug gang in Kampala. This is after she was jailed for
attempting to enter the UK with eight kilos of cocaine. She is now
serving a 12-year sentence.

Uganda has become a haven for traffickers because of its weak law
enforcement. This has allowed undesirables who move Asian women from
cities like Mumbai in India for the sex trade in Uganda. One such
gang was busted a few years ago but it is not unlikely that others
may still be operating in Kampala's exclusive suburbs.

Dr Ruhakana Rugunda, the Minister of Internal Affairs under whom
Immigration falls, believes much of the drugs that come into Uganda
originate from Asia but some sources suggest South American drug
cartels may have chosen Kampala as a transit point.

At the heart of the failure of Ugandan law enforcement to respond to
international criminal networks is evidence that it is preoccupied
with restraining the NRM government's political opponents instead.
Regime opponents receive more attention from the police and other
state agencies than anything else.

Uganda is a partner in America's war on terror and drugs but its
involvement has been most pronounced only in as far as its dealings
with the Lord's Resistance Army rebels is concerned.

In the meantime, a US government-inspired draft law on human
trafficking is stuck in Parliament together with a law on
surveillance and phone tapping.

Opponents to the latter proposal rightly fear that the increasingly
paranoid government may abuse such a law for purposes of political witch hunts.

Meanwhile money laundering, human and drug trafficking and weak
immigration controls, persist.