A notorious drug mert from Hanover Park has turned her life around and come clean about what it takes to smokkel on the Cape Flats.
After 25 years of selling drugs from her Council flat in Donegal Court, Deborah Roberts says she is klaar with her dinge after giving her heart to Jesus while lying in a cold, dark jail cell.
The 56-year-old, better known as ‘Aunty Debbie from Donegal’, says after months of hard work, she is eventually able to provide food for her family in a legal way.
Aunty Debbie first came to Hanover Park as an 11-year-old, saying she never even made it to high school as she got involved with boys to avoid her abusive father at home.
By 17, she had her first son and got married.
“Then I was abused again. He would hit me and sexually harass me and verbally abuse me.
“But when he went to jail, I got me a berk from the Ghetto Kidz gang,” she tells the Daily Voice.
“He was a hitman and I was daai girl. I stayed with him because I knew my husband could never reach me.
“But later he got shot and was in a wheelchair and then he died.
“So I took another berk from the Ghetto Kidz and started doing lots of things. I hid their guns and all that stuff.”
Aunty Debbie was later approached by one of the gang bosses about smokkeling from her flat and she gladly agreed.
She says for more than 20 years, she lived a lavish life inside her Council flat, making in excess of R100 000 a month.
“I was selling tik, unga and buttons [mandrax] and every day I got between R15 000 and R16 000. But the police used to be after me.
“The Metro police raided my flat over and over and one day they found a whole shipment of buttons in the roof,” Debbie explains.
“I went to jail so many times and each time I was laying there I would say to myself I must stop now, but I never did.
“I was too used to the money, the cars and lekker aantrek.
“My children and grandchildren went to private schools and I always had the latest ry ding [car].
“They sent so many boere to my house and I could never even go to a shop in my own community because other gangs wanted to kill me.”
Last year, after being arrested once again, Aunty Debbie says God spoke to her.
“Each time I got arrested it was for less and less drugs and that was God showing me how I need to come right,” she explains.
“So when I got out I decided to stop and gave my life to Jesus.
“Everyone was shocked and even the gangsters couldn’t believe it.
“I used to look like a man walking around with chains and caps. All the gangsters knew me and how I could smokkel.”
With just R1 600 in her pocket, the ouma of five says she reached out to local prayer groups for help to turn her life around.
“I was not used to such small money but someone said, ‘Debbie, go sell chips.’ I went to [the shop] and walked around trying to sell chips for R1 a packet.
“I met a Muslim woman and told her my story as she bought chips and she encouraged me to kap aan and I did,” Debbie adds.
“I got some money and invested in buying fish to re-sell and, today, I sell groceries from my flat.”
After a week of praying and fasting, Debbie attended an open air service near her home where she begged for forgiveness from her neighbours.
“I prayed and fasted and went to say sorry,” she explains.
“As drug dealers, we never really understand the impact we are having on people’s families.
“We are also killers and I want to encourage other merts that they can turn their life around.”