Cassie Sainsbury reveals series of events that led to 2017 drug trafficking arrest in Colombia

In a tell-all interview, Cassie Sainsbury said a Gumtree ad unleashed a chain of events that would see her arrested for drug trafficking in Colombia.

Cassie Sainsbury said a stint in sex work was how she first became involved in drug trafficking, an act that would see her locked up in a Colombian jail.

In 2017, the then 22-year-old was found guilty of smuggling 5.8kg of cocaine out of Colombia inside 18 headphone boxes. While she was jailed for six years, she walked free in April 2020.

On Sunday, the now 27-year-old sensationally revealed to Channel 7’s 7 Spotlight that a short stint at a “gentleman’s club” led her to delivering cocaine in Sydney’s CBD. The job would see her make up to 15 deliveries a week, and earn from $100 to $150 per delivery.

“I didn’t realise it was actually a brothel, because it said ‘gentleman’s club’, and so I imagined a bar,” said the former personal trainer.

Want to stream your news? Flash lets you stream 25+ news channels in 1 place. New to Flash? Try 1 month free. Offer ends 31 October, 2022 >

Cassie Sainsbury broke down as she revealed the series of events that led her to being arrested in 2017. Picture: Channel 7

Sainsbury revealed that a short stint at a brothel led to her delivering packages of cocaine across Sydney’s CBD. Picture: Instagram

The 27-year-old said she would deliver as many as 15 packages a week. Picture: Instagram

Sainsbury said she had accidentally applied for the brothel role after she saw an ad on Gumtree advertising an hourly commission rate and flexible working hours.

While she called her two-month stint doing sex work “one of the worst things that I have experienced,” a madam put her in touch with a man named Joshua.

He then asked her to deliver envelopes that Sainsbury would collect from the brothel, before dropping them off at businesses within Sydney’s CBD. It wasn’t until later that she realised they contained cocaine.

“I was very naive,” she admitted.

“In a week it could have been two or three times, or it could have been to the next extreme and being up to 10, 15 times.”

From Sydney’s CBD to Colombia

Eventually Sainsbury’s delivery jobs led to a job trafficking drugs overseas. Sainsbury said that she originally thought she would be going with another woman to London where they would receive a package. At the time she didn’t realise the operation would involve drugs at all.

“I look back at it now and I’m such an idiot, to be honest, that I didn’t see it,” she said

“We were told to receive documents and I thought that he couldn’t send her alone because he didn’t want her going alone overseas.”

However, she only realised once she received her one-way plane ticket that she was travelling to the capital of Colombia, Bogota. While she tried to call Joshua, she was given no choice but to travel to the South American country.

“I’d been told that I’d been followed, and that if I didn’t go through with their plan, there’s something bad that could happen to me,” she said.

In 2017 Cassie Sainsbury was found guilty of smuggling nearly 5.8kg of cocaine. Picture: Channel 7

Once Sainsbury landed in Bogota on April 3, 2017, she received a package from a man named Angelo. During that eight day trip, she said that Angelo also roofied and raped her, before giving her a large bag for her to bring back to Australia.

While Sainsbury said she knew it was cocaine, she “didn’t see a way out”.

Once at the airport, she was arrested by Colombian authorities and eventually sentenced to six years in jail and given a $130,000 fine. While the punishment was severe, she evaded the maximum sentence of 22 to 30 years, even though her father, Stuart Sainsbury wrote to the judge, asking for the longest sentence.

Just weeks ago, Mr Sainsbury revealed he hadn’t spoken to his daughter for five years.

“I am still pretty angry about it. My family was trashed. We share the same surname. I’ve got an elderly mother to protect,” he told the Adelaide Advertiser.

“I don’t know what to say. You smuggle cocaine. You do your time. I guess she’s done her time.”

Addressing the deep family lift, Sainsbury said she “didn’t expect” her father to turn on her.

“I think that’s probably the hardest thing, because at the end of the day I’m still his daughter,” she said. “I’m not saying he needs to condone what I did. But I’m still his daughter.”

Cassie Sainsbury returned to Australia earlier this week, after spending the last five years in Colombia. Picture: Channel 7

From 2017 to now

In the years since her sensational arrest, Sainsbury said she’s no longer the “scared little person that I was six years ago”.

In March of this year, she married a 34-year-old computer technician named Tatiana, who Sainsbury met in a Colombian nightclub.

Cassie and Tatiana married at a beachside wedding earlier this year. Picture: 7News.

Now working as an English teacher, the Adelaide native told her 19,300 Instagram followers that her and Tatiana will live between Australia and Colombia.

“I’m excited to go back (to Australia) yes – don’t get me wrong, my life is pretty much here in Colombia, and I’m starting a new English school. I’m married, I’m projecting myself in the best way possible,” she recently said in a post on Instagram.

“We’ll probably end up between Australia and Colombia because obviously her family is here so it will be like, some time here, some time there type of thing.”