It's easy to smuggle forbidden items from Thailand, says former drug dealer

It's easy to smuggle forbidden items from Thailand through the Rantau Panjang-Narathiwat border right under the noses of border and enforcement personnel, says a former drug dealer.

Abdullah (not his real name) should know - he had been smuggling large amounts of heroin from Thailand for four years until 2006.

He was finally caught, but not at the border. He was given up by one of his customers who was arrested for drug possession.

Abdullah was jailed eight years at the Chenor Prison in Pahang and given 10 strokes of the rotan.

It could have been far worse.

Many a time he had crossed the Muhibah Bridge over Sungai Golok and passed through the Immigration, Customs, Quarantine and Security Complex in Rantau Panjang with more than enough heroin for him to be hanged under Section 39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952, if caught.

Abdullah, who was released from prison in 2014 and is now 47, said: "One time I had among the vegetables and fruits I was bringing from Thailand a durian containing about one kilogramme of heroin.

"It had a street value of nearly one million ringgit."

Abdullah, like many other smugglers, hid drugs in vegetables like bitter gourd and pumpkin and fruits such as durian, pineapple and coconut.

These were finely cut open and the contents taken out and replaced with drugs and other forbidden items like components of guns, he said. They were then carefully glued together again.

Abdullah said he had turned to drug smuggling in desperation after his clothes business failed.

Before that he was a carpenter and wooden house builder who was much in demand. He had worked in Singapore and saved quite a bit of money, and decided to go into business selling clothes.

"I had many customers, but unfortunately most of them did not pay their debts to me which amounted to thousands of ringgit," he said.

After two years, he owed his Thai supplier about RM50,000.

One day, he saw his 13-year-old son rummaging through garbage looking for tin cans to sell for school pocket money. That was it for him. He decided that he must provide for his family no matter what.

"So, I decided to see a relative in Thailand who was a very rich drug dealer," Abdullah said.

The relative taught him how to conceal the drugs in vegetables and fruits and paid him 100 ringgit for every tube containing 3.3 grammes of heroin that he delivered to "clients" in Terengganu.

"I was soon delivering 10 tubes twice a week. Within two years I settled my debt with my clothes supplier," Abdullah said.

He then worked for another drug trafficker, who gave him a better deal. In his four years in the drug trade, police inspected his car and house several times, but failed to find any evidence against him - until the day a customer identified him as a supplier.

"My wife was outside the house and I was inside that evening when she called out the police were approaching," Abdullah recalled.

He said he rushed to the kitchen and grabbed three pineapples in a plastic bag which contained heroin, opened a trap door and threw it into the knee-deep drain which ran beneath the house.

"After I saw the plastic bag with fruits sink into the muddy water, I shut the trap door and waited for the police, looking as calm as I could.

"They were five of them. They ransacked the house but found no drugs. I thought I had escaped again. But just as they were leaving, the plastic bag with the pineapples resurfaced," Abdullah said.

Apart from being jailed and whipped, he had all his property, including money in the bank and jewellery he bought for his wife, confiscated.

A repentant Abdullah now teaches children and others to read the Quran.