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Jamary Omary
Jamary Omary, 35, looks weak, emaciated and hopeless the exact opposite of people whose pockets are lined with loot from selling drugs.Apparently, instead of lots of ‘dirty’ money, Omary has since developed internal abdominal complications, leading to severe pain and, to make a bad situation even worse, he remains as poor as when he began his illegal business.
The man faces what most people like him do: health deterioration and a craving for the very drugs that kill them in slow motion.
As a courier of one of the most lucrative but harmful trades, the man has nothing to report home about risky assignments, and says it’s his bosses who amass all the ‘wealth’ he makes.
During his itinerant errands between 1996 and this year, Omary’s assignments took him to Brazil, Iran, Pakistan, Mauritius, Swaziland, Madagascar, India and Argentina, among other destinations -- where he either imported or exported heroin, often exchanging it with coke drugs between those countries.
Finally, his masters mercilessly kicked him out of the business last year after he failed to do what he was ordered to do -- come back with drugs after his boss differed with his ‘hosts’ in Mauritius.
Narrating his ordeal to this paper, he said: “My boss … Geoffrey George … terminated my contract after I failed to come back from Mauritius … with what he expected.”
Omary explained that when in Mauritius last December, one Hamza Juma, an associate of his boss, confiscated the cargo and ordered him to come back home immediately, alleging George had conned him (Juma).
Despite efforts to contact George and tell him about his predicament abroad, the master insisted that he (Omary) must come back with either money or the cargo, which condition he failed to meet because his host (abroad) had also given him two options go to jail for 30 years (after he had threatened to hand him over to the police there) or release the cargo.
So he came back empty-handed, for which George sacked him, then confiscated his car, passport, a clothes shop as well as other valuables.
He added that his boss forgave and called him back last month, but ostensibly for an assignment to South Africa which he rejected on grounds that if his boss had failed to appreciate his (Omary’s) 18 years of obedient service, he would labouring in vain – and wanted none of that anymore.
He told his former boss that he could no longer carry the drugs on account of strong stomach pains.
Omary attributes his ill-health to prolonged ‘lodging’ of drugs in his tummy, for which he was being forced to carry a huge amount of cargo per trip with promises of “a good profit” which, in any case, never came his way.
Having survived as a courier since 1996 which he dropped just last January, Omary warns his fellow ‘errand boys’ of irreversible ill health from the drugs they are forced to swallow. “I went into this ‘business’ after my mother died … and my father decided to go back to Morogoro … I refused to go with my father … because I has already tasted the ‘sweetness’ of this business,” he narrated.
While many believe that it’s difficult to pass through airport control gates with the drugs, Omary is positive ‘nothing is impossible when you have money’ and are willing to ‘smoothen the hands’ of the officers at the port.
And even with improved surveillance at the airport last year, the governments never caught up with him.
Omary confirmed that ‘the business’ could, indeed, run smoothly; in his prime he used to give security officers at the Julius Nyerere International Airport (JNIA) between $2000 and $3000 in bribe both en route to his errands or on his way home.
He also confirmed never experiencing any trouble abroad, bragging it wasn’t easy to suspect him – because swallowing the drugs in packages was his preferred permanent transportation method – which wasn’t easy to detect.
Omary could import up to 2000gm per trip, while the agreements with his boss required him to bring in only 200gm, which allowed him a profit margin of about 6m/-.
Even with exports, it was again a case of bargaining; the bigger the cargo, the better the money he earned.
After ‘seeing the light’ Omary is now ready to expose the underside story of drug dealing, with the ‘big fishes’ as star performers.
Omary has also warned his former colleagues (couriers) that they destined for poverty – because most of their bosses were selfish and oblivious to the risks their couriers face.
“They (masters) are only interested in making huge profits … damn the couriers,” he warned.
SOURCE: GUARDIAN ON SUNDAY
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