They were two young, respectable and hard-working Hong Kong sisters. Now one is facing the death penalty in a Singapore jail, as the other tries to face up to the severity of her sister's sentence. How did they get involved with drugs in the first place? Angel Mou Pui-peng, is about to die. Mei-mei, her sister, knows this well. She is sitting in a booth in a hotel restaurant just a minute's walk from Wan Chai Police Headquarters, a place she has also come to know well. For the past 2? years she has been a frequent visitor to the narcotics bureau there - ever since she made a successful run through Bangkok, Seoul and Europe as a triad courier. With a woman police detective at her side for support, Mei-mei recounts the chain of events that has led her here to speak with me today.
On August 18, 1991, Mei-mei flew home from Holland to Hong Kong. As she stepped off the plane, Mei-mei had hoped to be greeted by her elder sister, Angel. Instead, as she pushed her luggage-laden trolley down the welcome ramp at Kai Tak, she was met by a band of narcotics bureau detectives from the Royal Hong Kong Police.
Angel, who had been simultaneously traipsing the world compliments of the same drug-trafficking syndicate, was expected to travel through Bangkok, Singapore, on to Zurich, by train to Amsterdam, and then back to Hong Kong.
The narcotics detectives came to Kai Tak to tell Mei-mei exactly this: Angel had only made it as far as Singapore.
'Do you know that your sister has been caught for smuggling heroin?' the detectives asked Mei-mei right there on the airport walkway. 'Did you know the penalty for this type of offence in Singapore is death by hanging?' The point-blank confrontation sent Mei-mei spiralling through a dizzying gamut of emotions: confusion, panic, disbelief. In fact, she refused to believe the detectives. But the more they told her about the details of Angel's arrest at Changi Airport and her incarceration at Singapore's infamous Changi prison, the more Mei-mei realised they were telling the truth. It was then that she began to understand her sister's fate. She nearly collapsed into a policeman's arms.
AS MUCH as this is a story about the lure of easy money, it is also a story about exploitation, desperation, and a fatal misunderstanding of the way the world works. One look at Mei-mei will tell you that. Pretty, soft-spoken, and naive, she is not the sort of person you would expect to be involved with the triads. And yet, she is exactly the type of Hong Kong girl the triads prey on.
'I would say the typical profile the syndicates look for is that of a young girl between 20 and 25,' says Detective Senior Inspector Peter Donohue of the Royal Hong Kong Police narcotics bureau. 'Usually she works at one of the nightclubs or karaoke lounges that proliferate in Hong Kong. I would say they share another common denominator in that they are usually heavily in debt.