Coke runners plead guilty to smuggling $21m worth of cocaine into Sydney
MELINA Roberge and Andre Tamine were on a 51-day cruise from the UK to Latin America and Australia that was meant to guarantee them easy money as they tried to smuggle an estimated $21 million worth of cocaine into Sydney.
NSW
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THE exotic locations and happy snaps taken on a luxury round-the-world cruise have quickly been forgotten after two Canadian tourists pleaded guilty to smuggling a record haul of cocaine into Australia.
Instead of looking back on their happy snaps, French Canadian Melina Roberge, 23, and Andre Tamine, 64, will now be wondering how it all went so wrong after they pleaded guilty to their involvement in smuggling an estimated $21 million worth of cocaine.
Despite previously pleading their innocence after police caught them with suitcases containing 95kg of cocaine when their cruise ship Sea Princess docked at Sydney in 2016 the pair pleaded guilty just days out from their trial, which was meant to start today in Sydney’s Downing Centre District Court.
They have both pleaded guilty to a charge of jointly commission the importation of a commercial quantity of border controlled drug.
Roberge had previously denied any involvement in the drug smuggling operation despite sharing a cabin with Isabelle Lagace, 28, who was convicted and sentenced to seven and a half years jail in Downing Centre District Court in November last year for her part in the drug supply.
Lagace, a former Canadian porn actress, and Roberge appeared to be close friends with both woman documenting their 51-day cruise from the UK to Latin America and Australia on social media. They shared numerous bikini-clad photos to their Instagram accounts from idyllic holiday locations in New York, Bermuda, Ecuador and Tahiti.
During Legace’s sentencing last November the court heard she thought the trip would be “an easy job for easy money”.
Sentencing Judge Kate Traill noted in her remarks that Lagace told the court she had agreed to smuggle the drugs to repay a $20,000 loan provided to her by someone connected to the restaurant/bar where she worked in Montreal.
Lagace, originally from Quebec, did not pay for her flights from Canada to the United Kingdom or for the around-the-world cruise which stopped in Ireland, USA, Bermuda, Columbia, Ecuador and Chile before arriving in Sydney.
The court heard that as the cruise ship approached Sydney, Lagace was asked by a man she refused to identify to hand over her room key.
Lagace said her role was to get the bag through customs and then hand it to another person.
However when the cruise ship docked in Sydney on August 28, 2016, Australian Border Force officers boarded the vessel and searched her room finding almost 30kg cocaine concealed in the suitcase and arrested her alongside Tamine and Roberge.
Tamine pleaded guilty on February 16 while Roberge pleaded guilty last Friday to their involvement and were refused bail.
Roberge is scheduled to be sentenced before the Downing Centre District Court on March 21 while Tamine will appear before the same court for sentencing on October 26.
The maximum penalty for smuggling a commercial quantity of cocaine, a federal offence, is life imprisonment.