Porn star turned cocaine ‘babe’ to be deported back to Canada
A glamorous porn star turned cocaine importer is set to be deported back to Canada if she is released at the end of her sentence this weekend.
EXCLUSIVE
Glamorous cruise ship cocaine importer and ex-porn star Isabelle Lagace is set to be deported back to Canada if she is released at the end of her sentence this weekend.
The 28-year-old has been in a NSW prison since her arrest with fellow French Canadian Melina Roberge on board the luxury MS Sea Princess in Sydney in 2016.
The two young women, who posted Instagram images of themselves at exotic port stops before picking up 95kg of cocaine in Peru en route to Australia, made headlines worldwide with their arrest.
Australian Border Force officers detained Lagace and Roberge, then aged 23, and Andre Tamine, 67, after boarding the cruise ship around 6am on August 28, 2016, and finding the drugs in their suitcases.
The cocaine was worth around $21 million.
The three Canadian nationals had sailed here via New York, Colombia, Tahiti, Chile, Peru and New Zealand.
They were part of a seven-member drug cartel aboard the MS Sea Princess, but they were the only ones among seven associates charged with the drug haul.
The women, from Quebec, had boarded the luxury cruise ship in Southampton in June 2016.
They had secretly agreed to become drug mules to pay off major debts accrued back in Canada.
This was despite Roberge having worked as an escort for a “sugar daddy” and Lagace posing nude in raunchy photo shoots and performing in videos.
Lagace, who pleaded guilty soon after her arrest, was sentenced to a maximum seven years and six months jail for attempting to traffic 29kg of the drugs.
However, NSW District Court Judge Kate Traill ordered for her release after a non-parole period of four years and six months.
With time served and backdated to August 28, 2016, this means her release date is February 27, 2021.
She is expected to be released by the Federal Attorney-General into the custody of the Department of Home Affairs and deported back to Canada.
The Federal Attorney-General’s office refused to comment on Ms Lagace’s case, “or disclose the details of individual federal offenders, and decisions in relation to federal parole matters”.
Roberge, who is serving a slightly longer sentence on the same charge of attempting to import a commercial quantity of cocaine, is due for release in May.
During their court hearings, it emerged that the two women had been lured into making the trip with first class cruise tickets worth $20,000, plus $6000 spending money and the promise of more money for delivery.
Roberge was told she would be acting as a decoy and was motivated “to take pictures of myself in exotic locations and post them on Instagram to receive ‘likes’”.
The ship stopped at Bermuda, Panama and Ecuador and when it got to the port of Callao in the Peruvian capital of Lima, four men travelling on-board made multiple trips ashore.
After that, a Sydney court later heard, Roberge and Lagace were an integral part of a “floating warehouse” of drugs.
Of the 29kg of the cocaine stashed in a suitcase in the women’s tiny shared cabin, 23kg of it was found to be pure.
Stored in his cabin, Andre Tamine had just under 70kg in three suitcases, similarly packaged in layers of Clipseal plastic bags tied up with masking tape.
Roberge would reveal that the two women had been recruited by a “sugar daddy” who told them they could earn up to $100,000 if they walked the cocaine through customs undetected.
The much older man had engaged in a sexual relationship with Roberge, paying for expenses in return for her working as an escort.
She had slept with men he introduced her to in nightclubs in Morocco, and been “excited” about taking the luxury cruise which she could not have otherwise afforded.
Roberge and Lagace were flown first class to the UK to join the cruise ship and act as the glamorous foil for the real business of the drug importation.
Unlike Lagace, Roberge tried to protest her innocence before the NSW District court, with her lawyer claiming she was unaware of the cocaine in her friend’s luggage in the cabin they shared.
But prosecutors argued that Roberge and Lagace had jointly occupied their small cabin for 40 days, and that she had to have known.
They had shared it with the suitcase packed with 29kg of cocaine “worth a considerable amount of money”.
Roberge was found guilty, and District Court Judge Kate Traill criticised her as “vacuous” for one of the motivations for the glamorous trip, receiving likes on Instagram.
“She was seduced by lifestyle and the opportunity to post glamorous Instagram photos from around the world,” Judge Traill told the court.
“This highlights the negative influence of social media on young women.”
Melina Roberge was sentenced to a slightly longer jail term than Lagace, whose release is due to an early guilty plea, with the younger woman due for deportation after May 27 this year.
The maximum penalty for importing a commercial quantity of cocaine, a federal offence in Australia, is life imprisonment.
Lagace’s maximum sentence will expire in February 2024.
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