Criminal gangs team up with dirty border guards to sneak dead bodies and drugs across Zimbabwe's busiest crossing point. Bus drivers and truck operators work with corrupt customs workers and health officials at Beitbridge Border Post. Families who cannot pay the huge costs for bringing loved ones home legally turn to these secret routes. Official paperwork and transport can cost up to three thousand dollars for people who died without proper documents. The illegal method costs around five hundred dollars and involves hiding bodies among regular luggage.
Drug dealers have learned to stuff narcotics inside corpses to trick border security. Some criminals even kill people just to use their bodies for smuggling. Police recently caught smugglers hiding guns and cough syrup inside coffins. Officers also arrested four transporters who tried to move twenty-five thousand dollars worth of drugs using fake burial papers. One driver named Shutori admits he has been moving dead bodies across the border since 2015.
The case of Misheck Musana shows how desperate families use these networks. The twenty-seven-year-old man died in Johannesburg after crossing illegally into South Africa. His family wrapped his coffin in blankets to make it look like normal baggage. They paid five hundred dollars to transporters and another two hundred dollars in bribes when border guards discovered the body. Government officials know about the problem but say they have not received any formal complaints about body smuggling.
Drug dealers have learned to stuff narcotics inside corpses to trick border security. Some criminals even kill people just to use their bodies for smuggling. Police recently caught smugglers hiding guns and cough syrup inside coffins. Officers also arrested four transporters who tried to move twenty-five thousand dollars worth of drugs using fake burial papers. One driver named Shutori admits he has been moving dead bodies across the border since 2015.
The case of Misheck Musana shows how desperate families use these networks. The twenty-seven-year-old man died in Johannesburg after crossing illegally into South Africa. His family wrapped his coffin in blankets to make it look like normal baggage. They paid five hundred dollars to transporters and another two hundred dollars in bribes when border guards discovered the body. Government officials know about the problem but say they have not received any formal complaints about body smuggling.
