‘Cocaine Cassie’ opens up on Colombian drug hell
Convicted drug smuggler Cassie Sainsbury is still a “vulnerable young girl” who appears to be easily influenced and struggles with other parts of her life.
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South Australian drug smuggler Cassie Sainsbury is still a “vulnerable young girl” who appears to be easily influenced.
In analysing her body language during her 60 Minutes tell-all interview, expert Dr Louise Mahler told News Corp Sainsbury looked healthy and happy with a “zest for life”.
“I don’t see an unredeemable monster in Cassie, what I see is a vulnerable young girl, surrounded by drugs, alcohol and the company of those happy to manipulate and take advantage of a girl who was willing to do all they asked so she could ‘get ahead’,” she said.
“This ease of influence over Cassie is shown in her new Colombian accent as those who shape their throats to respond to the throat shapes of others, shows a certain tendency to lack resistance to influence.”
Dr Mahler, who has written the book Resonate: For people who need to be heard, said she thought we would expect Sainsbury to be “a broken, beaten reflection of her former self”.
“Not so,” she said.
She also said Sainsbury’s relationship with the truth remains an issue, which she gives away by closing her eyes for longer than usual and nodding.
“Answering questions with the ‘classic’ slippery non-response of “why would I lie?” when asked about forgetting her pin,” she said.
“Her tears during the interview are not about what happened in jail or through any sense of remorse, Cassie cries because of the events that happened in the lead up to her capture. This is the crux of Cassie’s life, which is still dominated by the misguided hell she lived in before Bogata.”
Her comments come after Sainsbury admitted a mountain of debt forced her to seek out work at a brothel before the promise of a $10,000 payday lured her to Colombia to transport “documents” that turned out to be cocaine.
The 24-year-old Adelaide girl – dubbed “Cocaine Cassie” after she was caught trying to smuggle 5.8kg of the drug out of Colombia in 2017 – was released from a Bogota prison earlier this month after serving just three years.
Now, stranded in Colombia where she must serve the remainder of her sentence, Sainsbury is waiting to rekindle her prison romance with current inmate and fiancee, Joli.
Speaking for the first time since her release, Sainsbury said her nightmare began in 2016 when she and former Adelaide fiancee Scott Broadbridge were out of work, desperate and looking to “do something before we’d go under”.
“The situation was very difficult … for me and Scott,” she told 60 Minutes.
“We had rent to pay, we had bills to pay and I was sort of like, had all this pressure on top of me. And so I applied to a job offer which was working as a receptionist in a brothel (in Sydney).”
But Sainsbury, one of 4000 prisoners released by Colombian authorities in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, said she was convinced into sex work and “didn’t like doing it”.
When she quit shortly after, she was introduced to a man who offered her a job as a courier.
Before she knew it, the former personal trainer boarded a flight from Adelaide to China, then flew to Los Angeles and onto Bogota.
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“At first I didn’t even know it was drugs. I came here. I was told that I was going to be basically transporting documents,” she told the Nine Network.
“I know how it sounds, because obviously I accepted to come into it because for money, I needed money. But I wasn’t exactly like, I came there thinking, yes I’m going to go and smuggle drugs, it wasn’t like that. But when I got there, I knew something was weird, I knew something was off and it was like I’m here, like I already had both feet stuck in the sand.”
She said Brazilian drug lord Angelo Sanchez threatened to kill her sister and “sent me two photos of Scott”.
She also claimed Sanchez spiked her drink and “forced my clothes off”.
Sainsbury was arrested at El Dorado airport with 18 pairs of headphones packed with powder in April 2017.
“I wouldn’t wish anybody go through everything that I’ve been through,” she said.
Initially Sainsbury, who said she had been offered “modelling” work overseas, faced up to 21 years in prison before a plea deal cut the penalty to just six years.
“Don’t ever think that because you’re in need of something that you should be willing to accept to do whatever it takes to do it,” she said.
Sainsbury said she could not wait to be reunited with Joli.
“Honestly (the relationship) was the least thing that I expected to find in prison,” she said.
“It started as a friendship, and then out of nowhere, it just turned into a relationship.
“(But) I’ve grown up a lot. I learned a lot about myself, I’ve learned a lot about people. I’ve learned not to trust people so much.
“It’s been definitely like a massive learning curve, but at the same time, everything that I’ve been through in prison, everything that I learnt, I wouldn’t change it. It’s made me who I am today.”