Source: Asia Pacific Lawyers Network.
“Evidence is mounting of increasing numbers of internet romantics and international travellers risking their lives after being deceived, coerced and ultimately exploited by sophisticated international drug cartels,” New Zealand death penalty defence barrister, Craig Tuck said today.
“The cartels willingly sacrifice, for profit, drug carriers (often referred to as ‘mules’) in countries where execution is a potential sentence for those caught transporting,” he said.
“The ‘mules’ or disposable people – are essentially treated as a renewable resource in the drug supply chain, where they are quickly and easily replaced – if caught and executed as part of the so called ‘war on drugs’,” Mr Tuck said.
Mr Tuck is part of MULE, a new group of lawyers, internet scam victims, cybercrime and media specialists working to track down and expose scams that are resulting in an increasing number of people facing execution in the Asia Pacific.
Mr Tuck is directly involved in three death penalty cases in Indonesia and China, and advising on several others, which he says appear to be the tip of a vast and emerging iceberg, where new and frightening drug supply chain exploitation is occurring.
“Drug scams can embroil all manner of deception. Often they involve a suggested rendezvous with an internet lover, but not before sourcing ‘documents’, clothing or equipment in a secondary country, enroute, for the loved one. This is when drugs are often secreted into the exploited person’s possessions,” Mr Tuck said.
One of Mr Tuck’s most recent clients, New Zealander, Antony De Malmanche, recently received a 15-year prison term for trafficking 1.7kg of crystal methamphetamine into Bali. His defence team argued that he was a victim of human trafficking and provided detailed information about the drug cartel that exploited him at trial.
“Mr De Malmanche, who has a mental health history, was looking for love on the internet when “Jessy Smith” began grooming him with 450 pages of online exchanges. Mr De Malmanche was then offered an expenses paid trip to meet her and detoured to Guangzhou, China, where he was asked to carry a bag for her, before flying on to Bali where the drugs were found concealed in his luggage,” Mr Tuck said.
“Jessy Smith has never been caught and now appears in a number of other scams that are getting global attention,” he said.
Australian jockey, Anthony Bannister, is on death row in China for possession of the drug ‘ice’ found inside his luggage. He is thought to be a victim of an elaborate scam involving documents needed to divorce a Filipino woman; he had met and married in Japan. Mr Bannister is said to suffer from a low IQ.
“Evidence is mounting of increasing numbers of internet romantics and international travellers risking their lives after being deceived, coerced and ultimately exploited by sophisticated international drug cartels,” New Zealand death penalty defence barrister, Craig Tuck said today.
“The cartels willingly sacrifice, for profit, drug carriers (often referred to as ‘mules’) in countries where execution is a potential sentence for those caught transporting,” he said.
“The ‘mules’ or disposable people – are essentially treated as a renewable resource in the drug supply chain, where they are quickly and easily replaced – if caught and executed as part of the so called ‘war on drugs’,” Mr Tuck said.
Mr Tuck is part of MULE, a new group of lawyers, internet scam victims, cybercrime and media specialists working to track down and expose scams that are resulting in an increasing number of people facing execution in the Asia Pacific.
Mr Tuck is directly involved in three death penalty cases in Indonesia and China, and advising on several others, which he says appear to be the tip of a vast and emerging iceberg, where new and frightening drug supply chain exploitation is occurring.
“Drug scams can embroil all manner of deception. Often they involve a suggested rendezvous with an internet lover, but not before sourcing ‘documents’, clothing or equipment in a secondary country, enroute, for the loved one. This is when drugs are often secreted into the exploited person’s possessions,” Mr Tuck said.
One of Mr Tuck’s most recent clients, New Zealander, Antony De Malmanche, recently received a 15-year prison term for trafficking 1.7kg of crystal methamphetamine into Bali. His defence team argued that he was a victim of human trafficking and provided detailed information about the drug cartel that exploited him at trial.
“Mr De Malmanche, who has a mental health history, was looking for love on the internet when “Jessy Smith” began grooming him with 450 pages of online exchanges. Mr De Malmanche was then offered an expenses paid trip to meet her and detoured to Guangzhou, China, where he was asked to carry a bag for her, before flying on to Bali where the drugs were found concealed in his luggage,” Mr Tuck said.
“Jessy Smith has never been caught and now appears in a number of other scams that are getting global attention,” he said.
Australian jockey, Anthony Bannister, is on death row in China for possession of the drug ‘ice’ found inside his luggage. He is thought to be a victim of an elaborate scam involving documents needed to divorce a Filipino woman; he had met and married in Japan. Mr Bannister is said to suffer from a low IQ.
