R500 doesn’t buy you much these days, does it? A meal and a few rounds at the pub, an oversized handbag where you ladies can keep half of your worldly possessions, a human being…

A Malawian man has been arrested in Johannesburg after an undercover sting operation nabbed him selling his fellow countrymen for R500 each. Police made a deal to buy the four men and one woman, aged between 39 and 41, and once the cash had been handed over they swooped in and enacted justice.

The sting was part of a Hawks investigation, with news24 reporting:

The investigation revealed that the man would lure Malawians to South Africa with the promise of jobs, but would sell them when they arrived…

The five victims, who have since been taken to a place of safety, had been promised that they were going to work at a farm in North West.

Nothing against the North West but you couldn’t tempt me halfway across Africa with an offer to work in Mafikeng. One can only imagine the conditions under which they were living in Malawi.

The human trafficker will appear in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court on Monday. Hopefully some of the nearest prison’s inmates decide to show him a lekker warm welcome when he enters their gates.

[source:news24]