Thread by @Kauswe3

1980s Zambia - The growth of Drug Trafficking

The drugs came in by air from Bombay. The stolen cars and the South African rand came by road from Johannesburg. The swap was made here in Lusaka. It was a sweet piece of business while it lasted.

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Indian drug makers got cash for sleeping tablets they could not sell legally at home. White South African yuppies got pills that made them crazy when crushed and mixed with their liquor. And Zambian traders got rich, filthy rich by Zambian standards.

Affluence, in fact, is what finally did them in. In a country that can't afford bread, the smugglers' BMWs and wads of money attracted too much attention.

"How can Zambians who have no business in South Africa have so much money?" asked President KKaunda, afterordering the arrest of 10 drug smugglers. Kaunda said they would stay in prison until police found out "how they got these big cars when we [Zambia] have no foreign exchange

Among the accused were two Zambian diplomats, an assistant controller of customs, several prominent Lusaka businessmen, and a handful of South Africans who allegedly used to drive between Johannesburg and Lusaka, via Botswana, in specially designed false-bottomed cars.

The leading figure of the Zambian Connection was one of the nation's founding fathers - Sikota Wina, a crusader for Zambia's independence in the early 1960s, a government minister for 17 years, a former member of the Central Committee of the president's ruling party.

In 1984 he was arrested at Bombay Airport in India for alleged drug smuggling. According to Indian government prosecutors, he jumped bail and used a fake Sudanese passport to fly back to Lusaka under the name Hussein.

When he was nabbed in a New Delhi airport, with 100,000 pills in his suitcases, he listed his occupation on the arrest report as "freedom fighter."

Upon his return to Zambia, he claimed the drugs had been planted. Together with his wife, Wina was jailed in April 1985,[but was released the following year without facing a trial.

Wina's wife, the Princess Nakatindi wass also in prison on drug-smuggling charges.

She recently had sued the government to recover 429,000 rand, worth nearly half a million dollars when it was seized in 1983. Police confiscated the South African currency, which they said was drug loot, from a car driven by the princess' brother.

Finally, and most mysteriously, KK ordered the arrest of Vernon J. Mwaanga, 41, a former foreign minister, successful fruit exporter and one of the most influential black businessmen in southern Africa at the time

The president and Mwaanga were longtime friends. When Mwaanga was just 20 years old, the president named him to the first of a succession of key diplomatic and ministerial posts. For years, Mwaanga personally brought Kaunda baskets of fresh fruit.

The pills-for-cars, pills-for-cash scam, however, apparently began in the early 1980s. It quickly proved to be the fastest way ever devised to make hard currency in this country where per capita income was $580 a year and falling

The pills were known by their brand name, Mandrax. They are powerful sleeping pills derived from the mandrake plant and were produced in Bombay. Although sale of Mandrax pills within India was strictly regulated, they were got easily and at bargain prices by foreigners.

In the Zambian Connection, Mandrax was purchased in Bombay for about $4 per 1,000-pill box. By the time one pill got to South Africa, where young whites liked to crush it and either smoke it with marijuana or mix it with drinks it sold for about $2.50.

The potential profit on 100,000 tablets, which cost about $400 in Bombay and fit nicely into two suitcases, amounted to nearly $250,000

Those familiar with Lusaka's Mandrax business say South African traders, who came north with stolen cars, were willing to swap a $20,000 BMW sedan for five or six boxes of Mandrax, worth $20 to $24 in Bombay

Wina is charged with having traded 20 boxes of Mandrax (worth $80) for a Mercedes-Benz. With profits like these, it was not long before the twice weekly flights from India to Lusaka were filled with Zambians with large suitcases.

Nor was it long before customs officials at the airport were, according to government prosecutors,were taking large bribes not to open those suitcases. Nor was it long before confiscated suitcases full of Mandrax at the warehouses, were discovered missing.

Sometimes suitcases went into the warehouses full of Mandrax, but by the time police checked their contents they were full of aspirin or rice.

The money-bags braggadocio of drug traders, many people here believe, finally forced Kaunda to call in a team of special investigators.

So Kaunda invoked a draconian security act, intended to head off coups, and the arrests began. Diplomats say Zambian investigators worked with police in Bonn, London, Pretoria and Washington to arrest 32 suspects in Zambia and 26 others abroad.

Flashy, free-spending Zambians went into short supply in Lusaka. As before the Mandrax era, most of the shiny cars in Lusaka are again owned by Zambians with connections not to drugs, but to the government.

Source - Washington Post