A South African gang is using vulnerable young women to import cannabis for a number of Nigerians living in Ireland, it has been claimed.
Garda Denise Hall told Dublin Circuit Criminal Court about the drugs ring during the case of a South African woman who was jailed for 18 months for importing £26,000 of cannabis through Dublin Airport.
She said the Nigerian customers here preferred smoking the cannabis plant to cannabis resin.
Bernice Jacelyn Adam (22), Cape Town, South Africa, pleaded guilty to importing the drugs on September 14th, 1998. She wept throughout the hearing.
The court heard that another woman, Fikelephi Promise Thusinini, was also jailed for 18 months two weeks previously for importing £24,000 of cannabis for some Nigerians living in Ireland. A third woman has yet to come before the court for importing the drug in similar circumstances.
Garda Hall told prosecuting counsel Ms Una McGurk that customs found 16 packets of cannabis hidden behind a false lining in Adam's suitcase when they stopped her after she arrived on a flight from South Africa.
Adam told gardai she met a man called Wally on a bus journey from Cape Town to Johannesburg. He later besieged her with flowers, gifts and money until she agreed to go out with him.
Sometime later he asked her to travel to Europe and she consented. She admitted she knew her suitcase was unusually heavy but decided to continue with the flight.
Garda Hall said there was a Nigerian national at the back of the plan to import cannabis from South Africa and vulnerable young women were being used as couriers.
Defence counsel Mr Patrick Marrinan said his client had not told her family she is in custody and added that she was being subjected to racial abuse by prisoners.