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Another Kenyan arrested in Singapore for drug trafficking
Passengers queue up at Qantas check-in counters at Singapore's Changi International Airport on October 31, 2011.
Instead of celebrating her 31st birthday with her two children back home, Joyce Njeri Mburu is a remandee in a foreign land, facing drug trafficking charges.
Ms Njeri, a resident of Nakuru County, was arrested on July 29 at Singapore's Changi Airport along with four other women for allegedly trafficking nearly 27 kilogrammes of cocaine hidden in stuffed toys, along with 10 grams of cannabis.
According to the Central Narcotic Bureau (CNB), the five women: four Kenyans and a Hong Kong national, were intercepted in the transit zone of terminal 4, while exchanging suitcases containing cocaine-stuffed toys.
After the search, officers recovered 26.9 kgs of cocaine in over 1,300 pellets, some hidden stuffed toys, along with 10g of cannabis in luggage belonging to two suspects.
According to Singapore's authorities, Ms Njeri is accused of importing between 275 and 380 pellets, containing 5.9 to 7.9 kg of cocaine.
However, back at home in Maili Kumi in Bahati sub-County, her mother, Ms Rahab Wangui, notes that the news came as a devastating surprise as until her arrest, no one in the family knew she had travelled abroad.
Ms Wangui says that she only learned about her foreign trip in August when she managed to contact her younger sister who lives in Nairobi from the detention in Singapore.
Afraid to break the news on phone, the sister took weeks before she eventually travelled to Nakuru.
"She never disclosed to anyone that she was leaving the country, she only called her sister after her arrest. She could be celebrating her birthday today, but here we are still processing and in the dark on how she landed in Singapore and where she got the drugs she is accused of trafficking," she said
According to Ms Wangui, Njeri has been living in Nakuru Town, juggling life as a single mother while raising her two children. She could visit or call them frequently, recalling that they last spoke in July.
Ms Wangui was alarmed when she failed to come home for her regular visits and her phone was switched off, but she thought that she was held up with work and would eventually turn up once free.
But that was not the case. Njeri had secretly travelled to Singapore where she was nabbed with drugs, leaving her family both heartbroken and worried about her fate in a country known for its tough drug laws.
In September, Njeri called her mother and asked to talk to her children, before requesting her mother to pray for her and assured them not to worry as she was okay.
"We did not talk much, she had been given only seven minutes, she just told me that she is remanded and that the Embassy had visited them. During our conversation, she told me that the mention date of the case has been scheduled for December 16. We are just waiting," she said.
Ms Wangui noted that Njeri dropped out of school while in form three.
In Singapore, drug trafficking attracts severe penalties, including long jail terms and, in some cases, death penalty depending on the quantity of narcotics involved.
Under Singapore's Misuse of Drugs Act, trafficking more than 30g of cocaine carries a mandatory death penalty.
