PRISON FOR 'VULNERABLE' WOMEN DRUG RUNNERS

A JUDGE has said cases of vulnerable South African women being used as
mules for smuggling drugs into the State have become so common that the
court procedure had become a recurring "mantra".

Judge Elizabeth Dunne made her comment at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court
when the third South African woman in one day appeared before her for drug
trafficking.

She jailed Natasha Carollissen (29), originally from Cape Town, for four
years after she pleaded guilty to smuggling cannabis herb worth UKP35,000
into Dublin on June 11, 2001.

Carollisen was living in Johannesburg when she was approached by a Nigerian
man who offered to pay her $1,000 to carry a package to Dublin. Judge Dunne
said the procedure in these cases had become "a mantra, a pre-prepared
speech for the defence, the prosecution and the judge".

She noted that all the women were "vulnerable, in dire financial
difficulties, and ready and available to be used for what seems to our eyes
to be very small amounts of money considering the risk".

Garda Ronan Biggs said Carollissen had agreed to partake in a "sting" to
arrest her Nigerian contact in Dublin. This was abandoned, however, for
security reasons.

Carollisen's counsel, Patrick Marrinan, said she was working "in a
livelihood she did not want to be in" when she met the Nigerian man. She
agreed to the trip as a "once-off" way in which she could return to Cape
Town to be with her five-year-old daughter.

Mr Marrinan said she came from a poor family living as squatters in a
deprived Cape Town suburb.

Earlier, Anne Marie Swanpole (45), from Durban, who appeared on a charge of
smuggling nearly UKP44,000 worth of cannabis into Ireland, was jailed for 3
years.

She told gardai her alcoholic husband had put her in contact with
Nigerians, who asked her to make three trips to Ireland with drugs.

Garda Darren Martin said she had imported a similar amount the previous
March and had also made one similar trip to London.

Gda Martin agreed that her alcoholic husband had since been jailed in South
Africa and she was left to support two boys, aged 16 and 7. She also had an
older son, aged 18, who was living in a rented shed in the back of
someone's back garden. She was unaware of his whereabouts.

And a South African lapdancer who attempted to smuggle cannabis worth more
than UKP27,000 at the time of the last U2 concert in Dublin was remanded in
custody for sentence on February 14.

Jacomina Appel (29), from Johannesburg, arrived in Dublin from Johannesburg
via Frankfurt on May 19, 2000, with the drug concealed in her luggage.

Sgt Michael Halpin said Appel told gardai she had been assured by two
Nigerians that the package they asked her to bring to Dublin didn't contain
drugs when she indicated she would like to hear U2 in Dublin.

Customs officer Paul Nolan checked her luggage at the airport after
becoming suspicious and found 13.6kg of cannabis herb worth UKP27,275
concealed in a secret compartment.

Sgt Halpin said Ms Appel had been working as a lapdancer in various
Johannesburg clubs for a long time but became unemployed a few months
before she flew into Dublin.