Beneath the beauty, the Seychelles harbor a shocking secret: It’s estimated around 10% of the adult population is addicted to heroin. Drug trafficking and corruption reign.
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00:00A seemingly perfect paradise, next to living hell.
00:10Turquoise waters, besides desperate drug addicts.
00:18In the Seychelles, one in ten adults is addicted to heroin, that makes it the world's most
00:22heroin-dependent nation.
00:30Why are these gorgeous islands such a drug hotspot?
00:33In our investigations, we met with members of the Coast Guard, addicts and dealers.
00:37And we uncover the Seychelles' dark secret.
00:53Meet Gigi.
00:54She's five months pregnant, expecting a baby girl.
00:58Gigi started using heroin when she was a teenager.
01:01At first, she smoked it, then started injecting it.
01:05Her addiction is strong, stopping impossible.
01:14Does she worry about her unborn child?
01:23If you have a heart, it will hurt, you know?
01:26And money is tight.
01:27I have to sell myself, for me to get money.
01:40Gigi, everybody is looking at you.
01:43Everybody is pointing at you.
01:45Bad, bad, bad.
01:47You are a criminal.
01:48You are like a piece of scabies, a piece of shit.
01:53There's something you need to put you down.
01:58Sometimes no friend, no family, nothing.
02:01Only yourself.
02:05We'll return to Gigi in a bit.
02:07But first, let's try to understand just how big the Seychelles' drug problem is.
02:16As mentioned, nearly every tenth person of the working population is addicted,
02:20according to a government survey.
02:22Ten percent is a very high number.
02:24It's a number that's much higher than in the United States.
02:29This is Wanda Feller-Brown.
02:30She's done extensive research on drug trafficking.
02:34It's a very, very significant situation,
02:38with massive consequences for not just the quality of individuals,
02:42but, for example, the health of a workforce.
02:46The effect of heroin is severe.
02:48Users get an immediate sense of euphoria,
02:51followed by a deep slump, making the drug highly addictive
02:55and one of the deadliest in the world due to its high potential for overdose.
03:04We're back with Gigi and her friend, whom we'll call Bobo.
03:11He wanted to stay anonymous to protect his identity.
03:14You will soon find out why.
03:16The two take heroin together regularly.
03:19He calls her his doctor, because without her, he cannot inject anymore.
03:24He has used all the veins reachable to him.
03:27They are now too scarred to be used.
03:38Heavy withdrawal symptoms like headache, muscle pain and nausea
03:41are only stopped by a new shot.
03:47After the injection, he smokes heroin as well.
03:58Why is use so widespread?
04:00One reason, heroin is cheap.
04:03Over the last two decades, the price of an average dose
04:06dropped from around $35 to just $7, we're told,
04:10making the drug affordable.
04:12Many of the around 300,000 yearly tourists
04:15have no idea this is happening.
04:17But slowly, things are starting to change.
04:22If you were in the outskirts of Victoria,
04:24you could see one or two people
04:26who were clearly under the influence of drugs.
04:29You can tell drug use is an issue here.
04:32In the evening, people often ask you if you want to buy something.
04:36Should the drug problem become even more noticeable for tourists,
04:40it would be even more devastating for the local population.
04:43The tourist industry is one of the country's main sources of income.
04:47Almost half of its GDP relies on tourism.
04:54But there are those committed to fighting back.
04:57Behind these gates lies the base of the Seychelles Coast Guard.
05:02Major Hans Radugond has agreed to meet us.
05:05He tells us why it's so difficult to stop drugs from entering the country.
05:13The entry point are many.
05:15Our forces are small, but we do work a lot
05:19to provide certain security to the people.
05:23A big challenge of his team,
05:25patrolling the borders of a country
05:28A big challenge of his team,
05:30patrolling the borders of a country
05:32which includes 115 islands.
05:45Let's look at this in detail.
05:47Why has this tiny nation become a drug trade hotspot?
05:51The many islands that comprise the Seychelles
05:54lie dispersed in the Indian Ocean.
05:56And they are situated along one of the world's
05:59most well-known drug trafficking routes.
06:01But how exactly?
06:03The answer lies in a critical link
06:05between major opium-producing regions and global markets.
06:09The Golden Crescent, spanning parts of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan
06:13is one of the world's largest heroin-producing areas.
06:16Shipping routes traverse the Indian Ocean
06:19with the Seychelles acting as a transshipment point.
06:22They then go further to East Africa,
06:24some ultimately reaching the lucrative markets of Europe.
06:29The Seychelles does not have drug trafficking under control
06:32and very few islands in fact do.
06:34They often need to rely on external assistance
06:37to make significant improvements.
06:46We meet up with Boubou again.
06:48He seems to be deeply connected with the country's drug trafficking scene,
06:52which is why he didn't want to give us his identity.
06:55Boubou tells us he's been dealing with drugs in the Seychelles for years.
06:59I'm affecting a lot of families.
07:01I know that.
07:02But it's like that.
07:05Life.
07:07I survive.
07:09I don't have too much education.
07:14What can I do?
07:16And he makes another claim.
07:17For every trafficker caught, many go unnoticed.
07:20And he suspects that even those drugs that are intercepted
07:24are not necessarily off the Seychelles drug market.
07:27There's a lot of drugs with the state.
07:30What do you think they will do with it?
07:32They will burn it?
07:33Long time they don't burn.
07:36When you think it's burned, they burn powder.
07:39A lot of corruption.
07:41Now there are drugs that are selling now.
07:47It's the stuff on the boat that gets caught.
07:52While we can't verify his accusations,
07:54we've heard similar allegations of corruption within law enforcement multiple times here.
08:01Corruption is a very large problem in the Seychelles.
08:03It's not just the cops, it's also the judicial system
08:06that is a vulnerable element to corruption and to criminal infiltration.
08:13We asked the Ministry of Interior Affairs and the police commissioner
08:17to comment on the allegations of corruption in their ranks.
08:20But don't receive any response.
08:25Someone who helps those affected by the epidemic is Kenneth, a social worker.
08:30Today he's helping at a needle exchange program, financed by the government.
08:35Users who inject heroin come here for fresh needles.
08:39Using old or shared ones could mean transmitting hepatitis or HIV.
08:44People can die very quickly from either disease and heroin itself.
08:49I have two very close cousins that have passed from substance abuse.
08:56So this really gives me the motivation.
09:03He takes us straight to where heroin is used most, in the capital Victoria's ghettos.
09:09We have to film discreetly because the atmosphere is tense.
09:13We will go up there.
09:15When someone is using substances, it's not only him that is being affected,
09:22it's their family and also the society.
09:28He drives from one ghetto to the next.
09:31Many addicts don't make it to the social centre, so Kenneth needs to go see them.
09:36He knows slipping into addiction is particularly easy here,
09:40because the drug is everywhere.
09:42One person Kenneth was able to help is 23-year-old Romeo.
09:47Romeo doesn't use heroin anymore, but methadone, distributed by another bus.
09:53It's been about eight months right now I haven't smoked heroin.
09:57It's really helpful for me.
09:59The government finances the program, but critics say providing methadone is not enough.
10:04They want a more holistic approach.
10:07The people on substances, they don't just need the methadone,
10:11they also need the psychological support.
10:14So I think there should be more people trained in the field of addiction.
10:20We confront government officials with this.
10:22Marie-Josette is the director-general of the Health Ministry's division for substance abuse.
10:28If you're asking me, how much I need to take a drug,
10:33substance abuse.
10:34If you're asking me if our resources are enough to cater for the service, I would say
10:45no. Our biggest challenge is human capacity, the trained personnel to work with those people.
10:53It's not only of trained, being trained or specialised, lack of them.
10:59Does not having a single residential rehab centre for the estimated 5,000 to 6,000 addicts
11:04have consequences?
11:05Yes, of course, it has an impact. If we could at least have some people get into the rehabilitation
11:17and then get out clean and able to go out in the society, that would be very much helping.
11:27We have a holistic hospital which is in the plan. Hopefully it will start next year.
11:37We found out the drug crisis in the Seychelles is driven by many factors. A lack of facilities
11:42and funds, corruption and proximity to lucrative international trafficking routes. An end is
11:49nowhere in sight, but Kennet will continue to support the addicts.
11:55I hope for my island to be one day a drug-free island.
12:01Gigi's wish?
12:02I wish I can stop with the heroin. I'm back to the girl I used to be. For me to make my
12:10children grow in a better life. A better life for everybody in Seychelles.
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