How she got here: From aspiring model to Colombia drug accused
LIKE so many other 22-year-old Australians, Cassandra Sainsbury had dreams of stardom. This is how she ended up in a Colombian jail.
IN COLOMBIA, the name Cassie Sainsbury doesn’t seem to resonate, despite the 22-year-old making major news headlines across Australia.
Overnight, Ms Sainsbury rated just one small mention in Colombia’s four major news outlets; they care more about the plane crash that killed eight people than the alleged drug trafficker who cried innocent.
But for Cassie, this could well be the beginning of a 25-year journey to freedom. The question is, how did she get here?
‘THIS HERE IS HELL ON EARTH’
Khala Sainsbury posts a shattering update to Facebook last Friday, April 26, alerting friends of her family’s burgeoning crisis, one that will in just days become major news across Australia and one that will shine a spotlight onto their family.
Her sister, Cassandra, has been arrested in Colombia on drug trafficking charges. She’s been sent to Colombian’s biggest women’s prison to await trial for the 5.8 kilograms of cocaine found in her luggage.
“This is where my baby sister is currently staying. When I first saw this I cried my eyes,” Khala wrote, accompanied by a story about the Colombian prison crisis.
“The overcrowded, filthy patios, the bullet holes in the guards’ cabin, things that I saw but was not allowed (and unable) to photograph,” writes photographer Jan Banning, who shared her horrifying experience capturing the essence of the magnitude of situation.
“They have to pay not to be beaten up or robbed of their few belongings. They have to pay to be allowed to buy some extra food or toiletries. On the other hand, if they have money, they can bribe the guards and smuggle drugs, weapons and mobile phones (a.o. used for extortion) into the prison.”
For the Sainsbury family, almost 16,000km from their baby daughter and little sister, the enormity of the situation is overwhelming.
“I am so scared for Cassie, I prey to god every night to watch over her,” Khala wrote.
TWO YEARS AGO
Cassie Sainsbury was just like any other 22-year-old Australian woman trying to make a name for herself on the Yorke Peninsula near Adelaide.
She was part of the Warooka futsal team, a regular “goal scorer”, according to the Adelaide Advertiser, and she volunteered with the Warooka Country Fire Service between 2011-2014 before making the move to the big smoke.
Warooka, a fourteen-minute drive from her school, is known as the “Gateway to the bottom end”. The town had a population of just 247 at the 2006 census.
Her three huskies, who lived with her and her fiance, Scott, were her pride and joy; Buster, Bella and Rex.
She had ventured into personal training, her Instagram page has an impressiver 5500+ followers. Some reports state Ms Sainsbury had moved on to become an aspiring model.
“Although Cassie is a PT, she is not currently personal training and hasn’t been for six months. I don’t know why that was mentioned at all,” Mr Broadbridge wrote on the fundraising page.
She had attended Yorketown Area School on School Road, in a rural area known as Yorketown, on the southern Yorke Peninsula. It’s a school that “provides options and opportunities for all its students to achieve their personal goals,” according to its Facebook page.
But those goals might fail to fly. As her sister put it: “She has her full life ahead of her, and now it’s all put on the line because of this. We miss her so much, and since we have very little contact with her it’s very hard.”
HER LOVE LIFE
Personal posts from Cassie’s Facebook page reveal an insight into Cassie’s former flames. And it doesn’t look good.
“Ouch, that hurt more than I expected it to ...,” she posted on May 23, 2011.
A week later, she posted another cryptic update: “You know, if it doesn’t work out you know where to find me. OK, awkieess.”
A string of posts seems to indicate that during her teen years she developed unhealthy relationships with men.
“Some guys are complete a**holes!” She writes on June 23, 2011.
“I’m over you, leave me alone,” she wrote on June 27, 2011.’
At the end of 2010, it seemed no better.
“You cant screw with my head no more,” she wrote on December 17.
“So, just because it wasn’t perfect, didn’t mean it wasn’t what I wanted..!” She wrote on December 23, 2010.
THE FIANCEE, THE PROPOSAL AND THE WEDDING
Before her arrest, Cassie was living in Moana, an outer coastal suburb in the south of Adelaide, with her fiance, Scott Broadbridge. She described him as “the love of my life”.
Mr Broadbridge proposed on a cruise to Vanuatu and New Caledonia last year.
More than three-hours drive from her school in Yorketown, their wedding had been planned for February, and is the catalyst for the events leading up her arrest.
Since her arrest, Scott is said to talk to his fiancee by phone every night from prison, despite the prospect of facing the next 25 years apart.
“If you don’t know Cassie, and the respectful, loving, caring person that she is, don’t be so negative,” Mr Broadbridge wrote on a fundraising page.
“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.”
He has since removed his profile on Facebook.
WHY WAS SHE THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE?
Confusion reigns over why Cassie was in Colombia in the first place, especially travelling alone. But her family says she was there on a working holiday for a cleaning business in Australia and departed on April 3.
“She helped manage a commercial cleaning business that had both national and international clients,” Mr Broadbridge said. “Unfortunately it’s very easy for tourists to get targeted, especially in Colombia.”
According to HSB News, which credits itself as “the most important news from Colombia”, Cassie was due to stop in London, France and Hong Kong “to make presentations” before touching down in Australia upon her return. But she never made it.
DAY OF THE ARREST
It’s Thursday, April 11. Cassie has been away from home for eight days and is preparing to board a flight to London at El Dorado International Airport, in Bogotá, on her way back to Australia
She was just 10 minutes shy of boarding the plane when authorities pounced. They claim they’ve found suspicious items during an airport x-ray search.
Those suspicious items are 5.8 kilograms of cocaine concealed in 15 boxes of headphones inside her suitcase. That much is worth a whopping $1.5m in Australia.
The large stash was wrapped in 18 cylindrical packages of different sizes and hidden inside the luggage, stashed amid perfumes and moisturising creams for the body “that diminished the strong smell of the alkaloid”, according to HSB
News.
Cassie claimed she did not know she was carrying the drugs in her suitcase. According to the Adelaide Advertiser, Cassie’s sister, Khala was due to pick her up from Adelaide Airport on Easter Saturday but woke to a “horror story” on Good
Friday. Cassie never made it home.
WHAT DOES CASSIE SAY?
“I didn’t do it mum, you have got to get me out,” a “hysterical” Cassie told her mum during what has been described as a “chilling” phone call following her arrest.
Cassie says she was befriended by a man that could speak English and they became fast friends.
“He had been helping her all week, taking her around and showing her places, and just being a nice guy,” Cassie’s mum, Lisa Evans, said.
Ms Evans said Cassie wanted to buy some gifts for her bridal party, as well as for her family and friends. She told her mum about headphones and how she could get “16 or 18 of them ... at a really good price”.
On the day of Cassie’s arrest, 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,” Ms Evans said. “She didn’t even rip it open to make sure it was headphones in there,” Ms Evans said.
Inside was 5.8kg of cocaine, police allege. If found guilty of the charges, she faces a maximum sentence of 25 years. A trial is expected to begin in July this year.
INSIDE ‘VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED’
Cassie is being held at Colombia’s biggest women’s prison, El Buen Pastor, home to 50,000 people.
Travel safety expert Phil Slyvester said he held concerns for Ms Sainsbury’s safety inside the prison which he described as a “free for all”.
Not only is she potentially easy prey for drug cartels but also for other inmates who assume that as a foreigner she has money.
“Once incacertated inmates are often left to their own devices,” he said.
“It’s similar to a village which is surrounded by barbed wire. It’s basically a village of the damned.”
The prison is overrun with drugs, violent criminals and staffed by corrupt guards who steal food brought to inmates by their families.
Rusty Young, who spent three months in prison with an English drug smuggler in Bolivia, said conditions inside the prison where Ms Sainsbury is being held were “pretty horrific”.
“The conditions are not very hygienic. She will need money to survive, to get legal representation, to buy medicine — and she potentially could be facing a long stay in prison.”
A spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said it was providing assistance to Ms Sainsbury. A fundraiser has been set up to raise money for her legal costs,.
It is understood lawyers in Australia have now advised the family not to make any further public comments. News.com.au reached out to family members but did not hear back.
— Do you know more? Email youngma@news.com.au
‘Has to stop’: State’s tough new hate laws
New laws to crack down on the rise in anti-Semitism attacks are being introduced in one state, with the Premier warning hate crimes won’t be tolerated.
Reason wandering croc spotted far from home
Wildlife officers have revealed the reason a crocodile was spotted on a Sunshine Coast beach, hundreds of kilometres south of its usual habitat.
Teals hit Dutton, Albo with election demand
Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton have been warned crossbenchers will seek a major boost to social welfare payments in the likely event of a hung parliament.