Listeners of Joy FM were held captive Wednesday morning by a convicted drug courier who gave a chilling account of how he got involved in drug dealing.

Christopher Boakye Amponsah, popularly called Tough, got into drug dealing whilst in the University.

He was a student leader at the time (he had been at every stage of his education) and a desire to make some extra cash brought him into contact with drug couriers.

His modus operandi was to swallow pellets of drugs and cart them abroad where they were discharged for dealers on standby.

He received some cash in return which he spent on a lavish lifestyle in school.

Boakye Amponsah started off as a construction worker abroad during holidays.

But the money he earned was not enough to support the kind of lavish lifestyle he envisaged and which he saw others enjoy.

Whilst working at Putney Bridge in London, a friend told Amponsah he could make decent money by conveying drugs to the United Kingdom whenever he was travelling on vacation.

It started with meeting "this person who wants to help you turn life around." But the arrangement is such that after that initial meeting, there is no turning back.

Some people had to convey the drugs from Ghana to the UK "so that you are encouraged that everything is fine."

After this, the teacher-turned-drug-courier said his interest in the 'business' grew so arrangements were made for him to travel back to Ghana for his first consignment.

"In our case we always did the swallowing. As a gentleman, you wouldn't find me carrying things...and the people who did the packaging made it nicely; they wouldn't risk your life because it is teamwork, if I'm not there, you are not there."

Amponsah said he swallowed not less than a kilogram of narcotic substances neatly packaged on his first attempt and travelled to the UK.

"The kilo is a weight which can fetch you something worthy," he narrated.

The rules required that "you are not to take food otherwise you will mess yourself up and within those hours if you want to pack yourself with everything (food) you see onboard the plane, then you are going to endanger your own self; you not deliver the quantity you took."

On arrival, he was picked up by a team stationed at the airport by the gang for which he worked and this became the routine for the ensuing years that he engaged in the illicit business.

The first trip fetched him something in the region of 3,000 Pound Sterling even though "I couldn't carry the way it was expected."

After a number of trips spanning years (he wouldn't give exact figures), his days were numbered.

On one fine evening, whilst at the departure lounge at the Kotoka International Airport in Accra, waiting for the announcement for passengers to board flight so, so and so to Heathrow, security officials snatched his boarding pass as well as his passport from him ordered him to go downstairs.

In fact the announcer had called persons with babies to board the flight and when it was a couple of minutes before the others would join the queue to board the flight, a security official barked, "gentleman, you are wanted downstairs. I asked who needs me because where I sit I had no cause to go back but these people wouldn't take what I was saying."

Amponsah said he tried to challenge the security officials but it was all useless; they dragged him out of the airport into a vehicle and drove straight to the 37 Military hospital.

Interrogation started even before the arresting party got to the hospital but the ex-convict said he lived his name, Tough, and refused to answer any questions, responding to questions with questions.

"The questions they asked were 'what is in you? What have you taken'? But I can't answer your questions like that. I will tell you to tell me what you think is in me."

He said the security officials took him to the Police Hospital "where the X-Ray was taken before I was landed in the BNI cells, processed to stay there for the night and then the next morning, Tough is arrested and something is found in his stool." 

Tough was put before court and he was still tough, believing that he could escape justice because "you can win a case on technical grounds."

"So we were having vim (confidence) in the court; we went to court that morning well-dressed; people even had powder in their pocket that when the glory comes they pour powder on Tough," he stated.

But that was not to be.

A judge who heard the case sentenced Tough to 10 years' imprisonment.

He was released after serving six of the 10 years.

He is now campaigning for reform in the prisons in particular and the justice system in general. He believes many people in prison either do not deserve to be there at all or should not be there for the long periods that they have been there.

Listen to the interview in the attached audio.