Port Melbourne woman Yamina Daoudi recruits friends to smuggle 705g of MDMA in wine bottles
A jailed Port Melbourne architect who enlisted her mates to bring six bottles of expensive French wine with MDMA hidden inside into Australia has been told she is “definitely going to be deported”.
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A Port Melbourne architect who enlisted her mates to bring six bottles of expensive French wine with MDMA hidden inside into Australia has been told she is “definitely going to be deported”.
Belgian woman Yamina Daoudi, 32, was sentenced to four years jail for orchestrating the smuggling scheme that would have seen 705g of pure MDMA carried over the border in wine bottles labelled Saint Romain.
But after serving 637 days on remand, Daoudi could be on a plane back to Belgium by June next year when she is eligible for parole.
Judge John Smallwood told Daoudi during sentencing on Friday that she was “definitely going to be deported” once she was released from prison.
“The prospects of you rehabilitation should be good but you’re going to be deported so it’s of little significance,” he said.
“The risks of you reoffending in this country at least would have to be zero.”
Daoudi’s defence counsel Luke Barker submitted that his client rejected “an explicit intent to import the drugs” but Judge Smallwood didn’t buy it.
“I don’t accept that your level of involvement was that of someone totally naive, innocent,” he said.
“You told lies, you told them deliberately, you were obviously working in concert with (accomplice and boyfriend at the time, Antonin) Azar.
“You clearly must have been very aware that what was being done, whatever it was, was being illegally … commonsense says that has to be the case.”
Judge Smallwood said Daoudi was “somewhat vulnerable” and “exploited” but importing drugs was a very serious crime.
Daoudi, who had been living in Melbourne for six months, recruited a Belgian friend and her brother to ferry the drugs into the country on the promise of a free holiday if they brought with them her favourite Belgian chocolate.
The architect who worked at a jewellery store in South Yarra also asked the siblings bring six bottles of expensive wine that the brother collected from a stranger in a supermarket carpark in Brussels on the night of February 28, 2018.
But the brother was stopped at Melbourne Airport by authorities on March 8, 2018, where three wine bottles seized and tested positive for MDMA.
Daoudi and Azar were arrested later the same day in the airport’s international departures area waiting to board a flight to Paris.
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The wholesale value of the three wine bottles of MDMA was between $55,300 and $86,900.
The first three bottles were never recovered.
Azar was sentenced to seven years in jail in November 2018 for his role.