Mum arrested at airport security after showing border force her holiday photos
A woman who secreted almost 100 pellets of cocaine inside her body and her bra showed Border Force officers pictures of the drugs on her phone.
Mother-of-four Larissa Lins, 27, was stopped at Manchester Airport after flying in from Brazil on August 24 this year.
She claimed she had come to the UK to ‘research nice places’ having previously flown through France and Portugal, Manchester Crown Court heard.
Denying she had brought anything illegal into the country, she voluntarily showed officers pictures of her time in France.
However, as they scrolled, they came across a picture of the ‘white pellets’ and further searches revealed that Lins had ingested, secreted and concealed a kilo of the drug both internally and externally.
After pleading guilty to being concerned in the fraudulent evasion of a prohibition on the importation of a class A drug, she was jailed and told she will ‘almost inevitably’ be deported back to Brazil after serving 40 percent of her sentence.
David Toal, prosecuting, said Lins had flown from São Paulo to Manchester via France and Portugal, with just a small pink cabin bag.
She was spoken to by Border Force officers via a Portuguese interpreter, and said this was the first time visiting the country.
Lins said she had packed her suitcase herself and said she had not brought anything illegal into the UK.
Mr Toal said: ‘She volunteered her phone to show officers images she had taken in France, and whilst looking through officers saw images of white pellets, which were believed to be cocaine.
‘The defendant was arrested, and she told officers she had pellets of cocaine inserted inside her body since the previous day. She was taken to Wythenshawe Hospital where, at various stages, she passed all of the internal pellets.’
Officers conducted a further search of Lins, and found further pellets hidden within the lining of her bra.
In total 99 pellets were seized weighing a total of 1.1 kilos with packaging, and 923 grams without.
The wholesale price for that amount of the class A drug was estimated to be around £30,000, and the street value was in the region of £72,000, the court heard.
Lins was arrested and interviewed, during which she admitted swallowing 100 pellets before flying to France, and spent the next three days passing them before returning them to another person.
The day before flying to Manchester she admitted swallowing ten more and inserting further pellets internally whilst her ‘cousin’ placed some more inside her bra.
She said would have received the equivalent of £1,400. She was said to have no previous convictions in the UK or in her native Brazil.
Laura Broome, mitigating, said her client was in a ‘state of sheer desperation’.
Ms Broome said: ‘That desperation was exploited. She tells me she was instructed how to swallow, conceal and insert the pellets. Had any of those burst, she could have died.’
The sentencing judge, Patrick Field KC, said Lins was taking a risk with her safety and liberty, which ’emphasised her state of mind’.
Judge Field said: ‘It almost demonstrates the little regard those above her had for her safety.’
Ms Broome said the mum was genuinely remorseful and was ‘desperate’ to return home, adding that Lins had been recruited through coercion, intimidation and control, and was ‘naive’ with ‘no influence’ on those above her in the chain.
Ms Broome said: ‘Once she had realised the seriousness of the situation, she tried to stop her partaking any further, but was told she had no choice.’
Judge Field said: ‘This sort of crime is regarded very seriously in these courts. There is no doubt you were recruited to carry out the task and you were recruited by organised criminals who were more sophisticated than you and utterly unsympathetic to the risks you were running. I have no doubt [that amount of money] was a significant sum to you.’
Lins, of no fixed abode, wept throughout the hearing and was jailed for three years.
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