Adelaide woman Cassandra Sainsbury charged over 5kg cocaine drug bust in Colombia
AS CASSANDRA Sainsbury’s family defends her against doubters, an expert says she may have been used as a decoy.
Travel Incidents
Don't miss out on the headlines from Travel Incidents. Followed categories will be added to My News.
AN EXPERT on the South American drug trade said accused cocaine smuggler Cassandra Sainsbury may have been used as a decoy.
Rusty Young wrote the book Marching Powder about the Bolivia’s infamous prison system and told The Project drug dealers sometimes used young tourists as decoys, to enable other drug smugglers a clear passage at airports.
But he said the quantity Adelaide’s Ms Sainsbury was allegedly caught with made it seem unlikely that is what happened to her.
“The traffickers do use that when they have flights with a lot of different mules going on,” he said.
“They are giving one over to the police to let 10 go past.
“Typically they wouldn’t give away 6kg, that is a lot to give away.
“You would only usually give away one or two kilograms. (But) it is a possibility.”
Mr Young said it was “uncommon for people to be slipping drugs into other peoples’ bags” when there are plenty of drug mules readily signing up.
“It is a risk that they might go through them themselves and find it and throw it to the police and you have potentially millions of dollars worth of cocaine,” he said.
“Why would you do that when you could have someone who could do it voluntarily?”
Mr Young’s comments came after Ms Sainsbury’s fiance tried to defend his partner in the face of rising scepticism about her innocence.
The 22-year-old’s family insists that she was tricked into accepting the 5.8kg of cocaine hidden boxes of headphones she had purchased.
The Moana resident was arrested at El Dorado International Airport, in Bogotá for drug trafficking charges on April 11, just minutes before she was due to board a plane back to Australia.
With legal costs soaring by the day Ms Sainsbury’s family have turned to a fundraising website to help ease the financial strain, aiming to raise $15,000 on FundRazr.
The page has raised more than $2000 so far but has been overtaken with comments from those who don’t believe Ms Sainsbury’s story.
Many say Cassie’s story doesn’t make sense while others point out contradictory details provided by some family members.
Her sister Khala started the fundraising page and reportedly told the Daily Mail that Cassie’s trip “was at least in part to promote her personal training business”.
But fiance Scotty Broadbridge said Cassie had not been working as a PT for six months.
“Although Cassie is a PT, she is not currently personal training and hasn’t been for 6 months. I don’t know why that was mentioned at all,” Mr Broadbridge wrote on the fundraising page last night.
“She helped manage a commercial cleaning business that had both national and international clients. Unfortunately it’s very easy for tourists to get targeted, especially in Colombia.”
A representative of the South Australia Country Fire Service also went on the page to ask that references to Cassie’s volunteering be removed.
“Although SA Country Fire Service appreciate you helping your sister through this, we are concerned you are stating that she is a member of SA Country Fire Service,” Alison Martin wrote on the page this morning.
“She has not been a volunteer for the past three years and we would appreciate you taking all material relating to CFS from this profile.”
News.com.au has confirmed that Ms Martin is a senior media officer with CFS.
Ms Martin said Cassie had volunteered with CFS for three years but stopped in 2014.
Meanwhile, Mr Broadbridge has hit back at some of the commenters who say they didn’t believe Cassie’s story.
“If you don’t know Cassie, and the respectful, loving, caring person that she is, don’t be so negative,” he wrote.
“If this happened to your family is this how you’d want people responding to your situation. Just be respectful, we’re trying to get an innocent girl back home where she belongs.”
Her mum Lisa Evans told radio show Kyle & Jackie O on KIIS 1065 this morning that it was a “devastating situation”.
Ms Sainsbury reportedly told her mum that she was given the drugs by a man who offered to be her translator while she was in Colombia on a short working holiday.
“He had been helping her all week, taking her around and showing her places, and just being a nice guy,” Ms Evans said.
RELATED: Inside Colombia’s notorious El Buen Pastor women’s prison
She said Cassie, who hoped to marry in February next year, wanted to buy some gifts for her bridal party, as well as for her family and friends.
“She mentioned about these headphones she wanted to get and this man said to her ‘I know a guy that if you buy 16 or 18 of them, he can give you a really good price’.”
Cassie agreed and Ms Evans said on the day of Cassie’s departure the man came to her hotel and gave her the headphones, which were individually wrapped, possibly in black plastic.
“And this is where the naive bit comes in, she didn’t even rip it open to make sure it was headphones in there,” she said.
Ms Evans said the family had hired a respected lawyer who was advising Cassie to plead guilty to avoid a potential jail sentence of between 18 to 25 years.
The minimum sentence is six years but Ms Evans is hoping it will be reduced to four if she provides information about the man who gave her the drugs.
“I would rather her do four than 18 (years),” Ms Evans said.
Cassie’s father added that it would be difficult for her to plead not guilty as having the product in her possession automatically made her guilty.
Ms Evans said there was so many unanswered questions at the moment, including whether Cassie was being used as bait so that another bigger shipment of drugs could go through.
She said it was difficult to see the negative comments about her daughter, “they don’t know the whole story ... they don’t know her”.
Ms Sainsbury is now being held at Colombia’s largest women’s prison — El Buen Pastor — while she waits for trial, which could take up to two months, her family says.
She was visiting Colombia on a working holiday and departed Australia on April 3. Her older sister, Khala, was due to pick her up from Adelaide Airport on Easter Saturday but woke to a “horror story” Good Friday morning.
“They X-rayed her luggage and they found 5.8kg of cocaine concealed in packaging which was meant to be gifts for people for her bridal party and family friends,” Khala told The Advertiser.
“She’s supposed to be getting married next year and (the cocaine) was all concealed in the packaging of headphones she bought.”
The Advertiser understands the 5.8kg of cocaine was divided across more than 15 pairs of headphones that Ms Sainsbury was given the morning of her flight home.
“She was with somebody she had met that could speak English and she was sightseeing, he was showing her around,” Khala said.
“She came across some headphones that she was going to buy and pass out to everybody and he told her he knew a guy that could get them cheaper.
“She did that and got them handed to her Wednesday morning before she left, she just put them straight into her suitcase.
“There are just no words. Cassie is an honest girl, she wouldn’t do something like this in a million years.
“It’s like you’re watching a horror movie and you’re not waking up.”
A Colombian lawyer has advised the family to consider a guilty plea to avoid a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison, but communications have been difficult because of language barriers.
“He’s (the lawyer) hoping to downgrade the charges to the minimum if she pleads guilty but she is seeking advice from a different lawyer and the possibilities could be different,” Khala said.
“It’s so hard — myself and mum just can’t up and leave, I’ve got four kids and flights are so expensive without even looking at accommodation.
“We’d love to have a representative from Australia but we’re struggling to find money for the lawyer as it is.”
A spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it was providing assistance to an Australian woman arrested in Colombia, and “in accordance with the Consular Services Charter. Due to our privacy obligations, we are unable to release further information”.
On the fundraising site Lisa Evans, Ms Sainsbury’s mother, said she was “scared to death” for her daughter.
“As her mother I’m devastated that my little girl is in this place,” the post said.