Author: nomasmulas

Drugs’ dark path

This is my story, and I want to share it with the readers.
Growing up was tough. There was no money to support me, and life was hard. My parents tried their best but struggled to provide, and eventually, they passed away. My mother died in 2014, and my father in 2020. After that, my life wasn’t good, and I couldn’t finish school.

That’s when I started having issues at school; it became stricter, and it became hard for me to continue. I started feeling like giving up on my dreams. I felt overwhelmed and hopeless. Because of a lack of money, I couldn’t achieve the dreams that were deeply rooted in me. I felt trapped and without options.

Even though I tried, it was difficult to continue, so I began hanging around people who were into drugs and other bad influences. I started using drugs, and that’s when I got involved in selling drugs to try and pay for school and to support myself and my younger siblings. The lack of money led me down a dark path, and it became really hard to escape from it.

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A shocking deception

I’m Ugandan by nationality and 40 years old. I’m a father of three precious children, living in Uganda with my wife. I was arrested in January 2023 at Hong Kong Airport by customs officials after they found dangerous drugs on my clothing during a search. I was charged with trafficking in dangerous drugs in a Hong Kong court after realizing that it was illegal. I am writing this letter to appeal to all people, friends, and relatives: please don’t be influenced by friends or social media to get involved in dangerous drugs.

I was born and raised in a family that was full of poverty. Because of this, I was forced to struggle a lot to take care of myself and my younger siblings, as I am the fifth of eleven children. My parents were poor and couldn’t afford to educate me or my older brothers. I suffered a lot to help my parents care for and educate my siblings, and it was my dream to work hard to educate my children to the level they want, which I have failed to attain.

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Hustling to survive

This is my story on how I was lured into smuggling dangerous drugs into Hong Kong.

I am a father of three children (two boys and a girl), married to a beautiful wife who suffers from dementia. I have been living in Nairobi, hustling here and there to make ends meet. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I lost my job. Even though I didn’t earn much, it did help me pay for my children’s school fees, house rent, and daily living. My wife is a “housewife” who suffers from dementia from time to time. I was also taking care of my younger brother who was suffering from meningitis and his medication proved to be costly.

No matter how hard I tried to hustle, expenses were adding up, especially my brother’s medication. This was a big burden for me and I was slowly losing focus and became mentally drained.

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The glass between us

When I was 25 years old, I was arrested for trafficking and remanded. Now I’m 28.

From my childhood, I was taken care of by my paternal grandmother, and I can say that we were a happy family. Once, my mother and paternal grandmother had an argument, and we moved out of her home. We lived temporarily with my maternal grandmother for two and a half years.

When I was nine years old, my dad needed to work in New Zealand, and my mum had to run a shop on the mainland. They left me and my younger brother with my maternal grandmother. At that time, she had to take a part-time job to support us. She was often tired when she came home, and many times, I took care of my younger brother and learned to behave well. I knew that my parents did not abandon us; they were simply trying to earn money and taught me the importance of it.

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One wrong move

I was arrested for trafficking in dangerous drugs in August 2022 and I have been in prison ever since.

I am a Hong Konger, born in the 1960s, and I am 63 years old this year. I grew up in a poor family of seven, living in an old housing estate with my brother, two sisters, and parents. There was no material wealth at that time, and my parents had very low educational levels. Even so, this did not affect their teachings. They were strict in disciplining us, and we were very obedient. My academic performance was average, and after graduating from Form 5, I started working with my father.

At that time, my father had a hardware foundry, and I worked in the factory from 1980 til 1996. However, the good times did not last forever, as many factories moved production to mainland China due to economic shifts, business slowed down. I took up a job as a waiter in a karaoke bar to make ends meet.

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A very costly favor

I am 35 years old and currently in prison. I was arrested in 2023 and have been incarcerated for 23 months. I am involved in a case of trafficking dangerous drugs and a case of possession of Class A drugs.

I was born into a typical family of four, with a father, mother, and an older sister. I am the youngest, and no one in my family has ever used drugs; I also do not have a habit of using drugs and have never been in contact with them.

In 2015, I gave birth to a son. After his birth, I took care of him myself, looking after him during the day and working part-time at night to earn money. My husband was a transport worker and a gambler, and our relationship was always poor.

When my son  turned one, my husband and I separated and I moved in with friends temporarily because I had no time to work, and I had to apply for government assistance. When my son entered primary school, my parents retired, and household expenses increased, as did the financial burden. I needed find a job to make a living, so I entrusted the care of my son to his father. I was responsible for my parents’ and son’s living expenses, as well as my ex-husband’s.

The day before my arrest, a friend told me that he had a friend who was busy and asked if I could help by taking a bag of things and keeping it at my place until his friend could pick it up. At that time, I didn’t ask what was in the bag, and my friend didn’t mention it, so I agreed to help without suspicion since we had known each other for a while.

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“See you soon”

I am writing this letter to share my sad story and explain why I am in Hong Kong.

I am Portuguese, 40 years old, I have four children and a grandson who is two years old. I lived in Lisbon, Portugal, where I have lived since I was born.

I worked in the kitchen at a university, where I prepared food for students and teachers. They liked my food as much as they liked me, and I enjoyed my interactions with them. The company I worked for lost its contract, and unfortunately all employees were let go, myself included.

For about three or four months, I managed to cover the household expenses with my savings. But as time went on, things got harder because I was the sole provider for my family. When my savings ran out, I could see the household expenses piling up, and sometimes I even had to ask for help to get food for my children.

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The chains of regret

I am currently incarcerated at Lo Wu Correctional Institution for drug trafficking.

My life has been marked by significant challenges from an early age. My parents divorced when I was just five months old, and I was raised solely by my father, who worked long hours to support us. This meant I spent very little time with him. My mother remarried and started another family, leaving me with little guidance. I lacked supervision and, compared to my peers, became willful and unruly. My father, a traditional man, introduced me to smoking and drinking at just 10 years old.

Seeking warmth and love, I began dating at 11. By 13, I was pregnant and wanted to keep the baby, believing my boyfriend would support me. However, my parents insisted I have an abortion, thinking I was too young to care for a child. This led to my temporary suspension from school, and I never returned after ninth grade.

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Beyond the stormy waves

I grew up on Cheung Chau in a family of fishermen, raised by my grandmother, and completed my education up to Form 3. As the eldest son, I have one younger brother and two younger sisters. After my mother had my second sister, she stopped working on the boat to care for us, leaving my father to fish alone, which ultimately led to his tragic death at sea.

When I was eight, my father bought a house on Cheung Chau, and our family began to live together comfortably. After finishing Form 3, I took a one-year painting course and started working as an apprentice at a painting company at 15 to help support my family.

At 17, I began dating a girl who was a classmate of my cousin, and her family was also made up of fishermen. Our relationship blossomed over three years, and we enjoyed spending time together while our families got along well.

Tragically, my father developed heart disease at 40, which affected his ability to work and our family’s income. Fortunately, my sister and I were employed, allowing us to support the family, although my father occasionally went out to fish.

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Sixty eight pellets of desperation

Praise the Lord.

I am a 35-year-old single mother to a 9-year-old boy. I am a Christian from a humble background in Nairobi, Kenya.

This is my story.

I was raised by a single mum who passed away in 2015. Life has been really hard for me and my siblings after our mother passed on.

I remember mum would go hungry most of the time to sacrifice food for us children. She would ask for assistance from church every Saturday, and the little she got, she would save for my school fees to go to high school since I had performed very well at my primary level. She only managed to send me to a boarding school after an organization called Well Wishers fundraised for me. Meanwhile, my brother went to a day school, but he would be sent home now and then because of failure to pay the fees. I thank God because finally, we managed to finish high school. It was so unfortunate that we lost her. It pained me because she never got to know how I performed. She left us behind with our niece and we were to bring her up by ourselves. Life taught us to be responsible at a very young age.

All this time my brother and I had to do odd jobs to survive, pay the bills, and support our niece until we got stable jobs. I went to university after my relatives helped to pay for my engineering degree and after 2018, I wanted to start my own company that deals with the installation of biodigesters. I needed to set up a website for my company, payment for my Facebook page, capital for printing out brochures for marketing and set up an office. So I approached a friend of mine who was working for a micro-financing agency and who offered me a small loan, that I was to pay monthly with interest. I managed to set up my company and business picked up until the COVID pandemic struck.

At this time, life became so hard for self-employed people. I had to close down the office and had no money to pay the rent and my staff. I started selling rice, and I would pack and advertise my business online and do deliveries to get enough to sustain me and my son.

The friend who had facilitated my loan approached me again and asked me if I would like to make extra cash. Knowing the need I had, with all the debts incurred for the office I agreed without further thought. She later told me that it was a very quick job and that within 14 days I would get paid. This got my attention, but still, a small voice told me “Wait, the deal is too good, think twice”. I was reluctant at first, scared, and kept procrastinating. My friend assured me that she had successfully done it before and had traveled to Thailand. I took my time to think, but since I desperately needed money, I gave in.

She later organized a visa for my trip to Thailand, after convincing me that it wasn’t risky at all because it was as simple as carrying a backpack delivery and then getting the payment.

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Dominican Republic records largest cocaine seizure

Authorities in the Dominican Republican say cocaine discovered in the country’s largest-ever seizure was headed to Europe.

Hidden in a banana shipment, officials found 9,500kg of the drug at a port in the capital, Santo Domingo.

The cocaine was hidden in 320 bags with an estimated street value of $250 million (£196 million).

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A mother’s broken heart

I started using drugs at the age of 13 and have been using them for 17 years. Methamphetamine, primarily. At first, I was influenced by my peers… I was curious and used them for fun. But when things got difficult at home, constant arguments and scoldings, I decided to run away and joined a group of drug users, thus becoming a drug addict.

At first, I didn’t realise the drugs were doing me any harm since I didn’t seem to have any averse reactions to them. I only saw the effect it had on others, symptoms such as sleeplessness, obsessive behaviour, hallucinations, thoughts of self-harm, and losing control of their emotions.

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Caught between the lines

I was born in 1971 in Hong Kong. I am the youngest in my family and come from a single-parent household, raised by my father. I have an older brother, and no one in my family uses drugs. I have never used drugs and have had no exposure to them since I was young.

At the age of 22, I married my first husband. We had three children together: our oldest daughter is 30 years old, a son who is 25 years old, and our youngest daughter who is 13 years old. I have always taken care of the children by myself. My ex-husband, a printer by profession, was a gambler who never provided enough for our family. I home-schooled all my children and always tried to set a good example.

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If only bad people wore a label

I have been struggling to put pen to paper. Even when I started, I kept rewriting it and it took me a long time to finish it.

I am 28 years old and was born in Hong Kong. I grew up in a broken family. My parents divorced when I was three years old, and I have an older sister and brother. My mother emigrated abroad over 20 years ago, and there are no relatives from my father’s side here. My siblings are much older than me and left home earlier on rather than endure the discordant atmosphere of our home. In addition, my father had to work outside for a long time to support the family, this meant that I was pretty much on my own during my formative years. My father is a serious and traditional person. He made it clear when I was young that I had to “leave home at 18,” so I was deprived of the opportunity to attend university at an early age, and I left home without a solid financial foundation.

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Completely blinded by cocaine addiction

I’m a 23-year-old Brazilian. I’ve always been dedicated to doing my job and to furthering my studies. I come from a simple, honest, Christian family.

When I was fifteen years old, I entered the world of drugs through the influence of false friendships and my curiosity. That’s when I started using cannabis. I confess that at first, I didn’t have much trouble, but my life turned upsideown when I started to use cocaine in 2019. Since that moment, my life has been full of pressure. I disliked my life; it was a terrible nightmare. I began working only to buy drugs. I was unable to stop myself from taking drugs, the cravings controlled me.

Many times I needed my family’s support to pay for the drugs. My mother tried to help me pay the debts for me because she was afraid that if I didn’t pay, I would get killed. My mother helped me several times, trying her best to protect me from taking drugs, but I never listened to my mom. And I made another debt afterward: my mother helped me to pay once again.

I lost most things in my life. My girlfriend left me because I had too many problems due to drugs. After that, I was terminated from my job. I didn’t have the strength to work. I was very thin and weak, my appearance was horrible, and I wouldn’t have the ability to work at all.

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