Hong Kong priest’s mission to save drug mules from a system that favours kingpins

In the hustle and mayhem of a downtown Bangkok street teeming with prostitutes, sex tourists, garish bars and counterfeit-goods stalls, a grey-haired priest stops beneath a pedestrian footbridge to talk to two cocaine dealers from Ghana.

“It’s 4,000 baht [US$130] a gram,” one of the dealers mumbles, rummaging in his jacket pockets and shuffling nervously from foot to foot. His eyes then land on the crucifix around the man’s neck and he says, with a broad grin, “I’m a Catholic too, Father.”

The priest smiles, leans in and asks the dealer questions in a low voice. He hands the African a booklet explaining his work, tells him, “Look after yourself,” and walks deeper into the city’s dark heart.

Father John Wotherspoon is a man on a mission. He has flown to Thailand from Hong Kong to track down a Nigerian drug kingpin known as IK in a corner of Bangkok so lawless, even local police consider it a no-go zone. Armed with little more than his crucifix and an implacable faith in human nature, the 71-year-old is racing against time to get evidence that might lessen the jail sentence for a mainland Chinese woman called Li Dandan.

“She’s in court this week and I need to find him and get him to confirm to me that she was set up,” he explains, clutching photocopied pictures of IK, who the suspect says seduced her and then conned her into flying from Kuala Lumpur to Hong Kong with a cocaine-filled suitcase.