Music video dancer who tried to smuggle $71k of cocaine from the Caribbean jailed for six years

A 25-year-old dancer who came back from a luxurious holiday has been jailed after police opened her suitcase and made a shocking find.

A music video dancer who tried to smuggle cocaine worth $A71,000 while travelling to the UK on a Eurostar train has been jailed for more than six years.

Jade Cherise Sarwar, 25, was treated to an all-expenses-paid holiday in the Caribbean on the agreement that she lugged a drug-filled suitcase back with her.

The dancer was caught with the suitcase crammed with designer clothes and half a kilo of cocaine by Border Force officers at St Pancras International Terminal in London on January 13.

Sarwar was caught with cocaine among her designer clothes in London.

Ms Sarwar, of Newton Abbot, Devon, had teamed up with dealers Raymond Yates, 36, and Elijah Thompson, 28, in the smuggling plot, Isleworth Crown Court heard.

She had just flown back from the sun-kissed island of Martinique to Paris before boarding the Eurostar service while Yates and Thompson waited for her in London.

Her sun-filled holiday was paid for by Thompson, and she claimed he asked her to take a suitcase of designer clothes back to the UK.

DRUG-LACED SUITCASE

National Crime Agency investigators proved she was in phone contact with the organisers during her week-long stay in the Caribbean.

Photos from Sarwar’s social media accounts released by the NCA show her variously riding a jetski and relaxing with a beer on a luxury yacht during her trip.

Mobile phone calls showed that when she was arrested, Yates and Thompson were close to St Pancras Station.

She was stopped by Border Force officers at St Pancras International Terminal in London on January 13 this year

She denied her crimes but was convicted of conspiracy to import cocaine.

Thompson, whose nickname is Flips because of his short temper, phoned Sarwar 40 times, eventually leaving several hours later.

Just over two months before her arrest, Sarwar had been given a 12-month sentence suspended for 18 months in October last year for trafficking class A and B drugs.

CATASTROPHIC CONSEQUENCES

Sarwar was given six years for the latest smuggling offence and ordered to serve six months consecutive for breaching her suspended sentence.

Thompson and Yates were finally arrested in May by officers from the NCA and Metropolitan Police, the court heard.

Both men had appalling criminal records – Yates was convicted of robbery and sexual assault in February 2014 and jailed for six years.

National Crime Agency investigators proved she was in phone contact with the organisers during her week-long stay in the Caribbean

Thompson was locked up for 43 months in April 2013 for trafficking class A and B drugs.

Yates, of Croydon, south London, admitted conspiracy to import class A drugs and was jailed for nine years.

Thompson, of New Addington, south London, denied but was convicted of the offence and jailed for nine-and-a-half years.

Sarwar, of Newton Abbot, Devon, also denied but was convicted of conspiracy to import cocaine.

Sarwar was treated to an all-expenses-paid holiday in the Caribbean.

She was sentenced to six years in jail with six months consecutive for the breach.

The trio were also hit with a three-year travel restriction after their release.

Christopher Hill, senior investigating officer at the NCA, said: “The message to anyone tempted to try and make what they think is easy money by drug smuggling is you’ll be caught.

“The profits can be short-lived but the consequences to anyone’s future can be catastrophic.”

This article originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission