A former drug mule who used to work at the Department of Home Affairs had a sit down with eNCA and explained how she got lured into the drug world.

She now does awareness campaigns with SkeemGP about crime and the hard life in prison.

A FRAUD 

Clementine Jackson explained that she made fake identity books and passports and sold them illegally. She said her husband was the one who alerted authorities that she was committing fraud.

"After telling my husband that I want to leave him, he threatened to report me at work and to the police about what I had been doing."

She said she was arrested and spent a year in prison awaiting trial. "Fortunately for me I was not sentenced for that because they didn't find anything in my possession that implicated me but he was the one who sent the police pictures to show them what I had been doing. After I returned from prison I had already lost my job and while awaiting trial my husband divorced me and took custody of the children," she said.

Former drug mule Clementine Jackson learned the hard way

INTRODUCED TO DRUG WORLD

Jackson said coming out of prison, she had lost it all and had nothing.

"I moved from Vereeniging to Johannesburg to stay with a friend of mine and she took me to church saying my burden was too much and I needed prayers for a breakthrough.Little did I know that most of the members in that church were drug kingpins and that's how I was introduced to the drug world."

She said the friend told her that getting into the drug business would end all her problems.

"She told me that I will get an apartment to stay in and will never run out of money, so as a person who had nothing and nowhere to go I took the offer. At that time I was poor and had nothing, that's where I got my bravery from."

Jackson said she was scared because while in prison she met drug mules who were left to fend for themselves because their drug lords abandoned them.

"So getting into trafficking drugs I already knew the risks but I still did it out selfishness and greed forgetting that I had children. I used to pray hard when carrying the drugs for God to see me through. I promised myself that when I made enough money I would stop but there's was no way considering that I had to pay rent and maintain my lifestyle. I got paid R7 000 for for trafficking drugs from Joburg to George or Durban and those were just local trips."

She said the local trips were test for bravery to see if she can fly internationally.

IT ENDED IN TEARS

Jackson said she was caught in 2013 on her way to trafficking drugs from South Africa to Indonesia.

"I was going to get paid R45 000 upon my return, but I want to tell you that there is nothing that links the kingpin to you. There are no traces of anything between you two. He never touched anything, everything was done by the girlfriend in a rented apartment that he didn't come to. Even if he calls me, he would throw the sim away after the call and if you tried to reach him it'll take you straight to voicemail."

Jackson said preparing for her trip to Indonesia she was bought cycling shorts and a bra where the drugs were sown in.

She said after she went to the mall with the girlfriend to get skinny jeans and a second bra that she was meant to wear on top of the drug padded bra. 

"At the mall we noticed a white man following us but we didn't pay attention. We then went to a shop to buy my toiletries and then to a restaurant to eat then we went back to her apartment. They dressed me up and we left for the airport. We came across a road block but the driver managed avoid it and went to the garage and parked, he got off and the lady I was with also got off saying she was going to buy something. I was left alone in the car and suddenly I was surrounded by police cars and that's how my excitement to go abroad ended."

Jackson said the life of crime does not pay. "Life in jail is not easy -I was diagnosed with cervical cancer whilst there, I received chemotherapy while in chains. My fellow sisters and mothers stay away from crime."