A NIGERIAN man who swallowed 75 packets of pure cocaine which he had tried to smuggle into Belfast from the Netherlands last January, was jailed for four-and-a-half years yesterday.
Jailing Johnston Fayiah (26), Judge Patrick Lynch told him he “must have known the risk, had the bags burst, you could have ended up a corpse in Northern Ireland rather than a prisoner”.
The Antrim Crown Court judge said the importation of the drugs, worth over £100,000 (€126,000) was a serious matter, telling Fayiah that “the damage that these drugs do to people does not need explaining to you”.
He said that while Fayiah had acted out of greed, he was prepared to accept he was a drug courier rather than a major player.
Fayiah, with an address at Honzelean, Kemper, the Netherlands, was stopped by Customs officials because he fitted the profile of a potential courier after coming off an Amsterdam flight at Belfast’s International Airport on January 5th last. Prosecutor Tessa Kitson said when initially questioned, Fayiah denied having any drugs, but agreed to have an X-ray, which showed up the 300g of cocaine in 75 packets.
Fayiah later admitted he had been approached “by a man called Dan” who had paid him €500, with the promise of a further €1,000 upon his return to the Netherlands. “He was in need of money for his wife and family and this is why he did it,” said Ms Kitson. She added that the prosecution believed that Fayiah was “a trust courier” given the amount of drugs and the short time, only 15 minutes, it took him to swallow the packages, and the fact he was prepared to wait for the bulk of his money until afterwards.
Defence lawyer Peter Irvine said Fayiah, who has a wife and child in Nigeria, had escaped the west African country when he was 17 during a civil war which claimed the lives of his parents.
He added that Fayiah agreed to take the drugs because he was in extreme financial difficulties at the time and his need for money caused him to succumb to temptation.