Drug ‘mule’ jailed for more than 7 years
Christchurch Airport. © Albert Hsu
A South African woman has been jailed for seven years ten months for her role as a drug mule smuggling $1 million of heroin into New Zealand.
Laura Elizabeth Cilliers, 32, had the class A drug hidden in her luggage and inside her body and needed an operation to get some of it out. Her first court sitting after her arrest in late June was at her bedside in Christchurch Hospital.
Cilliers, a bar worker, was found with 99 triple-wrapped heroin tablets about 3cm long after her arrival on a flight from Singapore. She had swallowed some of them.
She was stopped at the airport looking unwell and with a swollen stomach. One pellet then had to be surgically removed.
Crown prosecutor Pip Currie said Cilliers had not been the mastermind of the offending, but there was a significant amount of premeditation given the internal concealment and the planning for travel. The Crown agreed on a reduction of the sentence for her early guilty pleas.
Defence counsel Craig Ruane urged that the reduction of the sentence be granted, and the judge accepted that.
Christchurch District Court Judge Gary MacAskill said Cilliers swallowed the 99 tablets on her departure from Cambodia, and realised authorities were suspicious of her during a stop in Singapore. She had carried on anyway.
She had not been able to keep down all the tablets she had swallowed and some were found in her baggage and her brassiere.
She said at the time that she had acted under duress because her husband and daughter had been abducted, but this was untrue. She later claimed there had been threats to her daughter, but the judge said he could not accept this was any more reliable than the previous explanation.
The probation report referred to her as a poly-drug user but she did not see her drug use as problematic because she believed she could give up when she chose. She was diagnosed as having hepatitis C.
Heroin was seen as a dangerous and destructive drug for users and their families.
The judge said Cilliers had not been the mastermind but had been a critical player in the distribution system, and had expected to receive a significant financial reward.
He imposed a jail term that he said took account of the harm to the community, but did not impose a minimum non-parole term.
A representative of the South African High Commission was present at court for the sentencing.
Category: Focus
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